

Public health policymakers also could use the new risk calculation tool to assess the likely impact of proposed heart disease prevention programs, while researchers could use it to help design clinical trials to test heart disease prevention strategies. The results of this study could help guide physicians in developing personalized prevention strategies for individual patients. “These results suggest that a self-declared Black racial status is a marker of underlying and unexplained differences in risk-factor impact.” Domanski, MD, Professor of Medicine, at UMSOM. “These data make clear the importance of instituting risk-factor reduction strategies as early in life as is feasible to reduce time-related cumulative exposure to harmful risks,” said study lead author Michael J.

White patients, on the other hand, were found to be more susceptible to elevated low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels than Black patients. Black patients also were found to be more susceptible to cardiovascular effects of uncontrolled high blood pressure as compared to white patients.

This finding is independent of other risk factors, including family history, smoking habits, and college attendance (a marker of socioeconomic status). Moreover, they were able to measure the additive impact of multiple risk factors leading to cardiovascular disease.īlack patients were found to have a 46 percent greater risk of developing heart disease compared to white patients. CARDIA, which tracked nearly 5,000 healthy young adults from four cities in the US for three decades, provided the researchers with data that allowed them to calculate the combined effects of individual risk factors like hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol. Their groundbreaking research, recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, leveraged data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. Utilizing advanced modeling techniques, researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) have created a novel tool capable of predicting heart disease risk in individuals aged over 40 based on their lifelong exposure to these risk factors. Heart disease, being the leading cause of death globally, has prompted scientists to investigate the compounded effects of multiple risk factors such as hypertension, obesity, and high cholesterol on an individual’s likelihood of suffering from a heart attack or stroke. Researchers have developed a tool that predicts heart disease risk in individuals over 40 based on cumulative exposure to risk factors, such as high blood pressure, obesity, and elevated cholesterol.įaculty members at the UM School of Medicine have created a cutting-edge tool that enables the early identification and assessment of risks in vulnerable patients.
