Researchers create online test to determine heart attack
http://health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8820674
You know your chronological age, but your heart might tell a different story.
The test http://www.jbs3risk.com/JBS3Risk.swf
Leading UK researchers have created an online heart test called JBS3 to calculate your true heart age and graph your chance of having a heart attack or stroke.
Based on your age, weight, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and whether or not you smoke, the calculator will also tell you the age you are most likely to reach without having a stroke or heart attack.
Doctors tend to focus their efforts on helping people who have a high risk of heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years, but the Joint British Societies, which created the calculator, hope it will enable doctors to intervene earlier.
The test shows that a 35-year-old woman who smokes has high blood pressure and raised cholesterol, plus a strong family history of heart disease, will have the heart of a 47-year-old.
Current heart assessment methods, which focus only on the next decade, put the heart attack or stroke risk at less than two percent.
The JBS3 test would also estimate her to live to 71 without having a heart attack or stroke.
But if that woman lowered her blood pressure and cholesterol and quit smoking, her heart age would drop to 30 and she'd probably live to 85 without having a heart attack or stroke.
The Joint British Societies is made up of the British Cardiovascular Society, the British Hypertension Society and nine other groups.
The test will be used in national health programs in the UK.
But Dr Robert Grenfell, the Heart Foundation's national director of cardiovascular health, told ninemsn the JBS3 couldn't replace tests done by trained medical professionals.
"This heart age test is not a substitute for a proper hearth health check with a qualified professional," he said.
"Estimates suggest only five to 10 percent of the eligible population are having adequate health checks."
The Heart Foundation encourages all adults over the age of 45 years, and aboriginal people over the age of 35, to ask their GP for a heart health check.
"This involves discussing your family history of heart disease, having your blood pressure and cholesterol levels checked and discussing what other risk factors you might have, such as being overweight, smoking or having diabetes," Dr Grenfell said.
He warned people not to think of heart disease as an old man's disease.
"Heart disease doesn’t discriminate. It affects all ages, men and women," he said.
"There is no single cause of heart disease, but risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a family history increase your chance of developing it. There are risk factors you can modify, but others like family history and age you can't control."
