How to find the real age of your heart and save your life
ROCKETING rates of killer cardiovascular diseases have prompted health chiefs to devise a potentially life-saving heart health test.
Stroke, heart attack and other types of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are the leading cause of death for men and the second for women.
A quarter of deaths occur in those aged under 75 – and experts say 80 per cent of fatalities are preventable with simple lifestyle changes.
Dr Hilary Jones, TV medic and GP, said: “With 50 preventable deaths every day of people under the age of 75, this is serious.
“It’s vital people know their heart health and take steps to reduce their risk of stroke and heart attack. As well as obesity, poor diet and a lack of exercise, high blood pressure is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but these are all things that people can change, and change now.”
Two million people have taken the test and a staggering four in five had a heart age higher than their actual age, putting them at significant risk.
It asks a number of questions about wellbeing and lifestyle and provides an immediate heart age estimate – and a prediction of the risk of a heart attack or stroke by a certain age.
It suggests lifestyle changes needed to reduce an older heart age, including losing weight, quitting smoking, exercising and cutting back on alcohol.
A third of those who have taken the test had a heart age more than five years above their age, while for 14 per cent it was at least 10 years above.
High cholesterol and high blood pressure can increase heart age and make heart disease or stroke up to three times more likely.
The major health warning comes months after two leading British medical experts said millions should stop taking prescription drugs and eat their way back to health.
In June, consultant cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra and Professor Dame Sue Bailey rocked the health establishment by saying the only way to prevent the UK being one of the sickest countries in Europe was to end our reliance on medication.
They say decades of incorrect dietary advice has replaced millennia of eating satiating, nutritious full-fat whole foods and turned us into a sugar-obsessed nation reliant on medication, like statins.
Processed foods make up half the average Briton’s diet, with most coming from starchy and sugary sources.
More than two-thirds of men and almost six in 10 women are overweight or obese.
In contrast, the Mediterranean diet, which is rich in olive oil, oily fish, nuts and non-starchy vegetables and low in sugar, bread, potatoes and rice, is credited for keeping weight down and protecting against heart disease.
Coronary heart disease remains the UK’s number one killer, with around 160,000 people dying each year from heart and circulatory disease.
There are now thought to be seven million people in England living with cardiovascular disease, at a cost to the cash-strapped NHS of £9billion a year.
Experts say one in four adults has high blood pressure but a further 5.6 million are living with the killer condition undiagnosed.
Professor Jamie Waterall, of Public Health England, said: “Knowing your heart age is a simple way of finding out whether you’re at risk of a heart attack or stroke.
“By making important lifestyle changes you can reduce your risk before it’s too late.
“Taking a Heart Age Test is something you can easily do at home, but it could be one of the most important things you do to help you live a healthy longer life.”