Is Your Heart Ageing Faster Than You? Here's How To Find Out Your "Heart Age"

Your heart may be older than you are, new research suggests. A study published Wednesday in JAMA Cardiology found that many adults, especially in the United States, have a "heart age" that is several years older than their actual age. Researchers from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine noted that this age gap is wider in men than in women. To help people assess their own cardiac health, the team developed a free online tool, called the PREVENT Risk Age Calculator, to calculate the heart age. 

According to Fox News, the tool uses information about an individual's health, such as their cholesterol levels, blood pressure, BMI, medications, smoking habits and diabetes status to come up with their estimated risk for cardiovascular disease and heart failure. The risk level is provided as an age rather than a percentage.

"Heart age, or PREVENT age, may be particularly useful for patients and clinicians and be more effective in preventing heart disease," senior author Dr Sadiya Khan, the Magerstadt professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who led the development of the PREVENT equations, told Fox News Digital.

"It translates complex information about the risk of heart attack, stroke or heart failure over the next 10 years into a number that is easier to understand and compare with one we are all familiar with - your actual age," he added. 

With the tool, the researchers aim to help doctors and patients discuss heart disease risk more effectively in a bid to ensure the right therapies are used to prevent heart attack, stroke or heart failure events. 

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Researchers put their heart age tool to the test using data from a nationally representative sample of more than 14,000 people ages 30 to 79. No one in the sample had a history of cardiovascular disease. 

The team then used the health data of the participants to calculate their heart age and compare that to their actual chronological ages. They found that, for many in the sample, the risk age of their heart was greater than their chronological age. Women had an average heart age of 55.4, nearly four years higher than their average chronological age of 51.3. Men, on the other hand, had an average heart age of 56.7, seven years higher than their chronological age of 49.7.

While "it's probably not that meaningful if your age is off by one or two years," Dr Khan says, the authors recommend getting concerned if the gap is five years or more. 

"We hope this new heart age calculator will help support discussions about prevention and ultimately improve health for all people," he added. 

However, researchers said that there is one limitation of the study. "The definition of optimal risk may influence the calculation of PREVENT risk age," they wrote, adding, "Alternatively, population-based percentiles of risk can provide a complementary approach to communicating risk, but these are influenced by suboptimal population health." 

"This type of tool needs to be tested widely to determine if it is more readily understood," Dr Khan said.