Researchers Create Heart Attack Prediction Tool
DALLAS, Texas (CBS Local) – Will you have a heart attack within the next ten years? Medical researchers affiliated with Dallas-based UT Southwestern Medical Center have unveiled an online tool designed to "calculate" a person's risk level for heart attack or stroke. Astro-CHARM specifically combines a person's heart health factors, including cholesterol, blood pressure, and family history.
The site also needs input of a person's artery calcium level. By specifically calculating the data together, the Astro-CHARM calculator provides a percentage figure, to assess heart attack and/or disease over a ten year period.
"This is prediction, and we want this prediction to be as precise as possible," Dr. Amit Khera, Director of Preventive Cardiology for UT Southwestern said Monday.
Dr. Khera says Astro-CHARM increases cardiovascular risk detection. The initial research for predicting heart attacks started with a partnership to research and evaluate astronauts with NASA.
Adults 40 to 65 years of age can access the page, and input their health data and medical family history. Participants must complete a calcium artery scan, which determines any classification of arteries.
The information is critical for total assessment of cardiovascular health. And what should a person do with the heart attack calculator information?
Dr. Khera says the information is built on addressing heart health and a ten year window gives an individual time to do address the potential health risk.
[H/T CBS DFW]