Your heart could be aging faster than you are
July 31 (UPI) -- Researchers who have developed a new "heart age" calculator say many Americans have unhealthy hearts that are physiologically older than their chronological age, with men faring worse than women.
The research team theorizes that telling folks their heart age might help spur them to healthier lifestyles and treatment.
"Many people who should be on medicine to lower their risk for heart attack, stroke or heart failure are not on these medications," explained study senior author Dr. Sadiya Khan in a news release. "We hope this new heart age calculator will help support discussions about prevention and ultimately improve health for all people."
The new heart age calculator, which is free to the public, is available online. Study findings were published Wednesday in JAMA Cardiology.
Khan, a professor of cardiovascular epidemiology, and her colleagues at Northwestern University in Chicago, note that the calculator is based on the American Heart Association's PREVENT equations, which talk about a patient's heart risk in terms of percentages.
For example, a doctor might use the equation to tell a patient, "8 out 10 people with your [cardiovascular] profile may have a heart event in the next 10 years."
Khan's group hoped that expressing the heart's condition as an age might be easier for folks to grasp.
To test the new heart age tool, they applied it to data on 14,000 nationally representative U.S. adults, ages 30 to 79, who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2011 and 2020.
None of the participants had any prior history heart disease at the time of the analysis.
In most cases, people's heart age was older than the number of candles on their birthday cake.
For example, over the whole cohort, women had an average heart age of 55.4 years, compared to an average chronological age of 51.3, the study found.
The news was worse for men: Their average heart age was 56.7, compared to an average chronological age of 49.7.
Certain demographic factors were in play, Khan's group noted.
Among men, for example, nearly a third of those who had achieved a high school education or less had a heart age that was 10 years or more older than their chronological age, the study found.
For men and women alike, being Black or Hispanic also tended to widen the gap between heart age and chronological age.
"Black men had a heart age 8.5 years older 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," a Northwestern University news release said. "The gaps were 6.2 years for Black women, 4.8 years for Hispanic women, 3.7 years for white women and 2.8 years for Asian women."
The key to shrinking these health gaps is prevention, Khan said. She hopes the new tool can help motivate people.
"We hope this tool helps doctors and patients discuss risk for heart disease more effectively so we can better inform what therapies can prevent heart attacks, stroke or heart failure events from ever happening," Khan said in the news release.
"The important thing is that we have very good options available in our toolbox to help slow that aging down if we can identify it," she added. "This may be even more important in younger people who don't often think about their risk for heart disease."
More information
Find out more about keeping your heart healthy at the American Heart Association.
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