How Old is your Heart? Device Calculates Organ's Age

In order to get a better of idea of your full heart disease risk, doctors from the United Kingdom have developed a new risk calculation tool known as JBS3 that can help patients to determine their "true" heart age and lifetime risk of heart attack and/or stroke.

This was designed to take into account a patient's family and lifestyle risk factors, including such conditions as high blood pressure and cholesterol, unhealthy vices, such as smoking and family history of various diseases.

Before this technology, there was only a short-term risk for doctors to determine if certain individuals were at a greater risk for a heart attack as well as other heart-related health issues. Yet now, researchers believe that the new risk calculator could dramatically reduce the number of people who suffer from heart attacks or heart-related concerns.

Based on the aforementioned factors, doctors collect information from each individual patient so that the JBS3 can estimate a patient's true heart age despite their actual age.

This device will be used by the National Health Service (NHS) Health Check Program in England, and is centered on adults between the ages of 40 to 74. All doctors are recommended to use this tool as a way to better assess their risk for certain heart events as well as an indicator of whether or not cardiac medical assistance may be in order.

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More information regarding the findings can be seen via the journal Heart.