Heart Health98% of Your DNA Was Ignored — Now It's Rewriting Heart Disease
Only 1–2% of the human genome codes for proteins. The rest, long dismissed as 'junk DNA,' is now known as the dark genome — and it turns out to be anything but inert. This vast non-coding territory includes regulatory elements, repetitive sequences, pseudogenes, and non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) that profoundly shape gene expression, cell identity, and disease risk. A new review in the European Heart Journal makes the case that the dark genome is a central player in cardiovascular disease. Advances in genomic analysis tools are now revealing exactly how these non-coding regions influence heart and vascular health — and pointing toward entirely new classes of targeted therapeutics. The implications for cardiovascular prevention and treatment could be substantial.
