Simple blood test helps predict risk of heart attack

London: A simple blood test can help detect several important biological processes that are active during the months before a heart attack, suggests a study. Heart attacks are the most common cause of death in the world and are increasing globally. Many high-risk people are not identified or do not take their preventive treatment.

Now, researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden have found that the blood test can predict if you are at an increased risk of having a heart attack within six months.

The problem, according to the researchers, is that risk factors have previously been verified in studies involving five to ten years of follow-up, where only factors that are stable over time can be identified.

"However, we know that the time just before a heart attack is very dynamic. For example, the risk of a heart attack doubles during the month a divorce, and the risk of a fatal heart event is five times as high during the week after a cancer diagnosis," said Johan Sundstrom, a cardiologist and professor of epidemiology at Uppsala University.

"We wanted to develop methods that would enable the health services to identify people who will soon suffer their first heart attack," Sundstrom said, in the paper published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research.