A research team led by Uppsala University has discovered that heart attacks, the world’s most common cause of death, can be predicted using standard blood tests. It has also developed an online tool that allows users to enter blood test results and other basic information to see if they have an increased risk of having a heart attack within the next six months.

“We know that the period just before a heart attack is very dynamic,” said team leader Professor Johan Sandström. “For example, the risk of a heart attack doubles in the month after a divorce, and the risk of fatal heart disease increases five times in the week after a cancer diagnosis.”

Sandström, along with other European researchers, based the hypothesis that several important biological processes are active in the months before a heart attack occurs, and that these can be detected with a simple blood test. I continued my research. He explained: “We wanted to develop a way to help health services identify people who are about to have their first heart attack.”

The research group had access to blood samples from 169,053 people without previous cardiovascular disease in six European cohorts. Within six months, 420 of these people had their first heart attack. Their blood was then compared to that of 1,598 healthy members of the cohort, and the results were published in a journal. Nature cardiovascular research.

“We have identified around 90 molecules that are associated with the risk of a first heart attack. However, currently the samples already taken in medical settings are sufficient to predict risk,” Sandoz said. Strom said. This has allowed researchers to develop an online tool, available at https://miscore.org/app/miscore, that allows anyone who uses it to reduce their risk of having a heart attack within six months. You can know.

“We know that people feel relatively less motivated to receive preventive treatment, so that was one of the goals of the entire study,” Sandstrom said. “If you know your risk of having a heart attack in the near future is increased, you’ll probably be more motivated to try to prevent it.”

Researchers will now study some 90 new molecules to better understand them and see if they have therapeutic potential. They also want to conduct new research to see if online tools are providing the incentives they intended.

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