New evidence shows that a patient’s blood type could be the best indicator of their risk of developing heart disease.
Published in the journal of Molecular and Cellular cardiology, research has shown that new biomarkers in blood can help identify a person’s likelihood of cardiovascular problems developing later on in life.
Traditionally, it has been risk factors such as BMI, blood pressure, smoking and dietary habits that have informed doctor’s decisions about longer-term heart health.
Although these did provide a degree of accuracy, results still overlooked 15-20% of myocardial infarction patients who were on the “low risk” list based on lifestyle factors.
Now, the team at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology want medical practitioners to regularly analyze blood for microRNAs, rather than just cholesterol and triglycerides.
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Reseracher Anja Bye said: “Our study showed that by measuring a combination of five different microRNAs 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.”
The study looked at 212 healthy participants that either died from myocardial infarction within ten years or remained healthy at the time of the final study in 2006.
This is not the first attempt in the last decade to improve risk prediction by isolating biomarkers in the blood; previously calculators added an inflammation marker called c-reactive protein (CRP) and diabetic marker called Hba1c.