Women to benefit from new heart disease test

Women could soon benefit from a new study looking at the factors that influence the risk of heart disease.

Researchers at the American Medical Association have developed a method called the Reynolds Risk Score, which is designed to predict a ten-year risk of heart attack, stroke and other diseases in female patients.

It looks at factors including age, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, family history and levels of C-reactive proteins.

Lead researcher Dr Paul Ridker said he hoped the research could help identify heart disease risk in women at an earlier stage and allow doctors to offer preventative treatment.

“Women need to understand that their risk of suffering a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular disease is the same as it is for men, but it happens about ten years later,” Dr Ridker said.

Existing detection methods have a failure rate of around 20 per cent.

Dr Roger Blumenthal of the John Hopkins School of Medicine backed the research and urged doctors to make use of its findings.

“Physicians should incorporate these factors into their testing and decision-making about which women are most likely to develop cardiovascular disease,” he wrote in an article for the American Medical Association’s journal.

“And physicians should intervene with lifestyle changes and drug treatment before symptoms start to appear.”

British women over the age of 50 have a greater risk of suffering a heart attack than contracting breast cancer.