A study finds that women who are carriers of hemophilia are less likely to develop coronary heart disease than the rest of the population.

The hallmark of the genetic disease hemophilia is reduced blood clotting, that can lead to severe bleeding problems. The disease is found mainly among men, but women can pass on the defective gene to their sons.

Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands, have been looking at the long-term health of hemophilia carriers. They wanted to know what impact a reduced tendency to blood clotting might have. Studying a group of more than a thousand hemophilia carriers, they found that these women had a 36 per cent lower risk of heart disease than the rest of the Dutch female population. They also had a 22 per cent lower risk when it came to overall mortality. Thus, although hemophilia is very serious for those who actually have the disease, being a carrier could actually be protective to health.

Source

The Lancet 2nd August 2003