Ideally, a stroke or heart attack can be prevented. This is becoming increasingly possible, because risk factors can be detected in the blood at an early stage. Prevention should therefore begin at age 40.
“Waiting to prevent heart attacks and strokes until women are in their 60s and 70s is a recipe for failure,” says Julie Buring in the “ Harvard Gazette “. The epidemiologist is lead author of the Women’s Health Study, a study that specializes in women’s health. “These data should be a wake-up call for women.” The data the scientist is talking about are the following:
Detect risk of stroke and heart attack 30 years in advance
So far, researchers have managed to predict the risk for the next five to ten years based on three values. Harvard researchers have now gone a step further. They tried to estimate the risk a full 30 years in advance. The earlier a risk is identified, the better those affected can counteract it and possibly prevent a serious cardiovascular disease.
Three values are considered important indicators:
- Highly sensitive CRP (C-reactive protein)
- LDL-Cholesterin
- Lipoprotein(a)
CRP is a marker for (vascular) inflammation, LDL cholesterol and lipoprotein(a) are components of blood lipids.
This was investigated by the Harvard study
For their “ New England Journal of Medicine In the study published in “The Study of the Inheritance of the Brain,” Harvard researchers looked at almost 28,000 subjects from the USA, all female, over a period of 30 years. On average, the women were 54.7 years old. At the start of the study, all were healthy.
The scientists documented how many women experienced a “serious cardiovascular event” during this period. These included
- a heart attack,
- Stroke,
- a bypass operation or
- death due to cardiovascular disease.
In total, this applied to 3,662 women over the course of 30 years, or around 13 percent.
Three times higher risk of stroke or heart disease
The researchers found out about the individual markers – each in comparison to women with the lowest values:
- Women with the highest CRP levels had a 70 percent higher risk of a major cardiovascular event.
- Women with the highest LDL cholesterol levels had a 36 percent higher risk.
- Women with the highest lipoproteinp(a) levels had a 33 percent higher risk.
Each individual biomarker that was higher than the ideal values increased the overall risk. Multiple elevated values increased the risk even further. Specifically: women with the highest values in all three groups had a 2.6 times higher risk of developing serious cardiovascular diseases. This connection was even clearer for strokes – women with the most elevated values had a 3.7 times higher risk of suffering a stroke in the next 30 years.
The scientists are convinced that a blood test that includes all three biomarkers could revolutionize prevention.
What the three test values for stroke and heart mean
“Doctors can’t treat what they don’t measure,” lead author Paul Ridker, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the Harvard Gazette. He advocates for the best possible care and for that, “we need comprehensive screening for inflammation, cholesterol and lipoprotein(a), and we need it now.”
Currently, it is still about the essential aspects of lifestyle such as diet, exercise and smoking cessation. The future of prevention will “clearly include combination therapies that target inflammation and lipoprotein(a) in addition to cholesterol.”
Treat risk factors individually
Cardiologists in Germany have also been committed to prevention for some time. Ulf Landmesser, head of the Cardiology Clinic at the Charité in Berlin, explained in an interview with FOCUS online: “At the moment we are focusing very strongly on treating the disease and often less intensively on prevention.” Landmesser demands: “This focus must change.”
Especially in the case of cardiovascular diseases, a lot can be achieved through prevention. According to the heart professor, the future should look like this: “Treat risk factors before they lead to complications – and do so on an individual basis.”
Three keys to preventing cardiac death
The most important things for maintaining health are these three things:
- Early Identifying risk factors .
- Early Recognizing emerging dangers If, for example, someone already has plaques, they must be treated thoroughly as a preventative measure. Doctors refer to deposits in the blood vessels as plaques. These form when blood fats, protein particles or connective tissue are deposited on the inner walls of blood vessels.
- Genetics – to identify people with increased (familial) risk.
Do you know your values?
From the age of 40, men and women should have their atherogenic lipoproteins checked, i.e. LDL-Cholesterin and in case of family history of heart or stroke disease also the Lipoprotein (a) .
At what values do we need to take a closer look?
Ideal values:
- LDL-Cholesterin : less than 100 mg/dl (milligrams per deciliter of blood), in the case of existing coronary artery disease less than 55 mg/dl
- Lipoprotein (a) : below 30 mg/dl (milligrams per deciliter of blood)
- Blood pressure : below 140 (systolic) and below 90 (diastolic)
- Diabetes : Fasting blood sugar below 100 mg/dl (5.6 mmol/l). Fasting values between 100 and 125 mg/dl indicate prediabetes, a precursor to diabetes.
- CRP value in the blood: It is usually below 5 mg/l (0.5 mg/dl). According to “Netdoktor”, this limit applies to both sexes and all age groups.
If the values are above these ideal values, it is time to take a closer look. These risk factors, which are already known today, can be treated well. Landmesser explained: “The sooner you take countermeasures, the better.”
