Mutant Gene Raises Stroke Chances By 7 Times. Every 25th Indian carries a mutant gene that makes him vulnerable to an “almost guaranteed’’ risk of a sudden cardiac arrest, results of a study published on Sunday suggest. Around six crore people around the globe carry the gene of which more than four crore are Indians, researchers said. “We can confidently say that 4% of the Indian population is at risk of a sudden cardiac arrest as they carry this mutant gene,’’ Kumarasamy Thangaraj of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, who led the study, said. The findings of the study were published in the latest edition of the journal ‘Nature Genetics’. India has a burgeoning population of cardiac patients and, according to a previous study, by 2010 the country will constitute 60% of heart patients across the globe. The new findings shed light on the genetic pre-disposition that increases the risk of heart disease in Indians. People having this mutation have 25 letters...