New tool reframes heart risk as ‘heart age’: 5 things to know

The average “heart age” of men in the U.S. is seven years older than their actual age, according to a study published July 30 in JAMA Cardiology. 

Using the American Heart Association’s Predicting Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Events equations, researchers from Evanston, Ill.-based Northwestern University developed a free online tool to reframe cardiovascular disease risk as an age, according to a July 30 news release from the university. 

Comparing a patient’s actual age to their calculated heart age can help providers communicate a patient’s risk for developing cardiovascular disease. Researchers plan to study how presenting cardiovascular disease risk as an age affects clinical outcomes and therapeutic uptake, the release said. 

Here are five things to know from the study:

1. The tool uses routine health data along with patient history and lifestyle factors to calculate a patient’s heart age.
   
   Researchers tested the age calculator on more than 14,000 U.S. adults ages 30-79 with no history of cardiovascular disease who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2011 and 2020.
   

2. Overall, men had a greater average discrepancy between heart age and actual age, at 7 years, compared to women, at 4.1 years. 
   
   
3. About one-third of men with a high school education or less had a heart age that was more than 10 years older than their actual age.
   
   
4. This discrepancy was wider among adults who identified as Black or Hispanic.
   
   Black men’s heart age was 8.5 years greater than their actual age, compared to 7.9 years for Hispanic men, 6.7 years for Asian men and 6.4 years for white men.
   
   Black women’s heart age was 6.2 years greater than their actual age, compared to 4.8 years for Hispanic women, 3.7 years for white women and 2.8 years for Asian women.
   
   
5. “Many people who should be on medicine to lower their risk for heart attack, stroke or heart failure are not on these medications,” Sadiya Khan, MD, senior author of the study and a professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said in the release. “We hope this new heart age calculator will help support discussions about prevention and ultimately improve health for all people.”

Read the full study here.