Heart disease: to feel healthy, it is not enough

Most people have a General sense of how healthy they are. This idea is consistent but not always with your risk for cardiovascular disease. The combination of the own evaluation and a measurement of the calcification of the coronary arteries comes to much better results.

Scientists, a US study found that the participants involved in your evaluation for their own health, although important factors such as physical activity, diet, Diabetes, high blood pressure and blood fat values. This reflected, however, not automatically your heart health: Ten percent of people who assessed their health as excellent, were without symptoms, but exhibited measurable signs of cardiovascular disease, which brought a higher risk for a heart attack or a stroke with it.

Better the results were, if the evaluation were combined with the results of the measurements to the calcification of the coronary vessels. Among those, the berurteilten their health status as excellent, had participants with Plaque in the coronary vessels and more than five times as likely for a heart attack or stroke compared to people without deposits. "Our study suggests an important message: Even if people perceive themselves as healthy, you can of severe cardiovascular diseases leiden", Dr. Olusola Orimoloye says, from the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center in the United States.

The Team used data from 6.814 people with an average age of 62 years who participated between 2000 and 2018, a study on atherosclerosis part. At the beginning of each of the participants asked, his state of health to be classified. In addition, a Calcium Scan the coronary artery, the Plaque is able to prove in the arteries of the heart.

ZOU