Scientists have discovered a genetic variant that may significantly increase the odds of a heart attack or early death.

Researchers at Duke University found that the "stress reaction gene" could raise the odds of heart attack or death by 38 percent. They previously linked the gene to an overproduction of cortisol, a stress hormone that can affect heart risks, but they recently found the gene in about 17 percent of men and 3 percent of women with heart disease, HealthDay reported.

"This is very exciting, but it's very preliminary. It certainly merits further investigation," study author Beverly Brummett said in a statement. "Down the line, if the findings were replicated, then the next step would be to test people [on a widespread basis] for the gene and watch them more closely."

Brummett , associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, and her colleagues ran genetic analyses on more than 6,100 white men and women who were part of a large database of Duke Heart catheterization for about six years. Two-thirds of the participants were men.

The researchers found that patients carrying the stress reaction gene experienced the highest rates of heart attacks and deaths over the time period, despite age, obesity and smoking history.

Researchers said this information does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

The research, which was published on Dec. 18 in the journal PLoS One, offers a potential new explanation for a biological predisposition to heart disease and early death.

Some believe it may eventually lead to personalized therapies for heart disease patients.

"There's a lot of talk going on about personalized medicine and we're trying to really individualize our therapies," Nieca Goldberg, medical director of New York University's Women's Heart Program, told HealthDay. "This identifies a genetic trait that predisposes people to heart disease, and once this is tailored a little more and we have more research, it would be exciting if this [genetic test] became commercially available,"

Goldberg, who is also a spokesperson for the American Heart Association, was not involved in the story.

She added that it would be useful to know how frequently the gene variant occurs in other ethnic groups, such as blacks, Asians and Latinos, since all of the study participants were white.