New method to reveal heart attack risk

London : Researchers have developed a new method to calculate your 10-year risk for heart attack with greater precision than traditional risk factors alone.

Levels of cholesterol and triglycerides, body mass index (BMI), smoking habits and blood pressure are considered as traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

There are several risk prediction calculators available.

However, the use of risk prediction calculators has declined in the primary care setting because the currently available calculators only explain a modest proportion of the incidence.

For myocardial infarction or heart attack, it is estimated that 15-20 per cent of the patients had none of the traditional risk factors and would be classified as "low risk".

"Our study showed that by measuring a combination of five different micro RNAs and adding this information to the traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease, we could identify those that were going to experience a myocardial infarction with considerably improved precision", said study first author Anja Bye from Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

They included 212 participants (40-70 years) from the Nord-Trondelag Health Study 2 (HUNT2, blood collected in 1996) who either died from heart attack within 10 years or remained healthy at the time of HUNT3 (2006).