What is your risk of a heart attack? The American Heart Association used a questionnaire to create PREVENT — a risk calculator. The American College of Cardiology has a different equation, the Pooled cohort equation (PCE).
This study published in JAMA, June 2024 — “Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk Estimates Using Predicting Risk of Cardiovascular Disease Events Equations” — compared the two risk calculators. They looked at 3,785 adults, aged 40-75 without known heart disease, and looked at atherosclerosis (clogging of your arteries) and cardiovascular disease (heart attacks, strokes). The mean age was 55, and 52% of the patients were women. Twenty percent were currently on statins.
What Did the Study Reveal?
- PREVENT was associated with reduced risk, looking across age, sex, and race compared to PCE
- Based on the PREVENT equations, 17.3 million adults recommended for statin therapy would no longer meet eligibility.
- PREVENT calculator
- It looks at gender, age, cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI, kidney function, diabetes, smoking, whether you’re on meds for blood pressure or lipids, UACR, HbA1c (a blood sugar marker), and zip code
Our Thoughts?
The PREVENT test was a good calculator. We recommend taking the test to see your risk. It reinforces our views on BMI/weight, cholesterol, and diabetes being important factors. But we do think it is too simple. It looks only at HDL and LDL cholesterol, but many of us in the biohacking community feel the importance of more detailed cholesterol evaluation and looking at other factors, like ApoB (see blog on why we care here). This is not included in the PREVENT test, and many are starting to think lowering ApoB within the “normal” range may be cardioprotective for those at risk.
Biohacking is looking forward, trying to optimize and looking at your risk as an individual. These big studies are valid and important, but they may not paint the full picture.
How Can Biohackr Health Help?
Testing:For this PREVENT trial, we can tell you your insulin resistance, HbA1c, a FULL cholesterol panel (which includes LDL/HDL/and other markers like ApoB), and blood pressure.
InBody Scan: This scan is neat. Not only does it tell you your weight, it estimates your muscle versus fat. It shows where your fat is so you can get an idea of how much visceral fat you have. Visceral fat = “intraabdominal fat” or “metabolic syndrome fat” and is associated with increased cardiac risk. The scan gives you goals for weight change and muscle change.
Weight loss:High BMI? The weight loss medications out now are super effective and proven to help with body health. We offer semaglutdie and tirzepatide. Read the blogs here.