Fig. 1.

Co-inheritance of multiple genetic risk factors in the presence of environmental triggers has a significant impact on the development of clinical conditions associated with the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and/or Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Environmental factors that may be either harmful or beneficial (right column) in the context of their direct effect on genetic factors underlying the high-risk clinical conditions highlighted in the circles on the outside, can potentially be manipulated to prevent the conversion of genetic risk factors into disease (Reproduced with permission from Kotze et al. 2006)