What if a simple test can alarm you about a possible heart attack and that too within five minutes? Sounds impossible! Right? Well, as per a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association by a group of Swedish researchers , a home test can reveal the risk of heart attack in five minutes. “A heart attack often comes out of the blue,” says Göran Bergström, Professor of Clinical Physiology at Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, senior physician at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, and principal investigator of the study. “Many of those who suffer heart attacks are apparently healthy and asymptomatic, but have fatty deposits in the coronary arteries, known as atherosclerosis.
Our test makes it possible to identify almost two-thirds of people aged 50–64 who have significant coronary atherosclerosis and are therefore at high risk of cardiovascular disease ,” he added. The algorithm consists of 14 questions related to age, gender, weight, waist circumference, smoking, high blood pressure, high blood fats, diabetes, and family history of cardiovascular disease. According to the study, by combining information from the responses in a special algorithm, the can detect 65% of individuals at the highest risk of cardiovascular disease.
"We have developed a self‐report tool that effectively identifies individuals with moderate to severe coronary atherosclerosis. The self‐report tool may serve as prescreening tool toward a cost‐effec.
