The Times
Chris Smyth, Health Editor
Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:
“Patients sometimes worry about symptoms, even though there may not be anything to worry about. When a patient does not have symptoms, they can easily think that they are fine, fit and healthy. Sadly, being healthy is a bit more complicated that the presence or absence of symptoms. Heart health is a prime example. Heart Age calculators have been around for a while, we use them in our health screens. The point is knowing what your heart age is MAYmotivate you to make the necessary lifestyle changes to decrease your risk of a heart or cardiovascular event such as stroke, or then again it may not, as always, it’s our choice to act on advice.
Professor Waterall correctly points out that damage to the heart accumulates invisibly and added: “The purpose (of knowing your heart age) is to make it visible and make people see the impact that these things are having over many years.”
Fifty people die every day from heart attacks or strokes that could have been prevented with better living, health chiefs have calculated.
An early death could be avoided every 30 minutes if middle-aged people ate better, smoked less and exercised more, Public Health England (PHE) says.
People should check their “heart age” using a calculator that has previously estimated that four in five middle-aged people have hearts prematurely damaged by unhealthy habits. One in six men over 40 has a heart a decade older than he is, PHE estimates.
Jamie Waterall, its head of cardiovascular disease, said: “Millions are at risk of cardiovascular disease but don’t know it, putting themselves at real risk of suffering ill health or dying younger. 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.”
The test assesses weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking and other illnesses to estimate the age you could reach before having a heart attack. Professor Waterall said that it was “not about shocking, it’s about informing”, saying that people were often unhappy with the results but wanted to change.
Damage to the heart accumulates invisibly and Professor Waterall added: “The purpose is to make it visible and make people see the impact that these things are having over many years.”
About a quarter of the 84,100 deaths from heart attacks and strokes in England each year are in those under 75 and PHE believes about 80 per cent are preventable if people change habits. This translates to about 19,200 early deaths a year that could be avoided.
For non-smokers, blood pressure is the biggest risk and Professor Waterall warned that 5.6 million people had high blood pressure without realising, which “was a big concern”.
John Deanfield, the professor of cardiology who developed the test, said: “Understanding personal risk and heart age, together with opportunities from intervention, empowers people to take control of their own cardiovascular health with potential important gains over their lifetime. It is never too early to invest in the future health of your arteries to delay or prevent heart attacks and strokes.”
Health chiefs are drawing up a ten-year plan for the NHS after Theresa May promised a £20 billion budget boost and PHE wants this to include a bigger emphasis on healthier living.
Simon Gillespie, of the British Heart Foundation, said the shock of discovering you had a prematurely worn heart “could give you the impetus to make healthy lifestyle improvements such as eating a balanced diet, exercising regularly or visiting your GP to talk about your blood pressure”.