Fascinating new study looking at the use of CAC in higher-risk but relatively young people. They were generally typified by having cholesterol ratio issues, and strong family history – but very few smokers and only ~3% were diagnosed diabetics.
If you were in this category, wouldn’t you want to know – and take action to prevent your heart attack? This beats the living daylights out of blood “risk factors” or surrogates. You might do like an engineer does, and look directly at the disease level itself. Remember: “If you don’t Measure it….it don’t get Fixed.”
Note that around 1 in 10 people in this worrying group aged 40-49 have a CAC >100 – with shocking relative risk for CVD and All-Cause Mortality. Also, although far fewer of the 30-39 year-olds have substantial CAC – their outlook is just as bad as for the 40-49 year olds who have it. And of course, a zero CAC in someone with cholesterol or family history is very useful to know also – but you still need to watch diet and lifestyle, and keep an eye on the better blood tests (e.g. Trig/HDL ratio, Insulin/glucose etc.)
The full study is available by clicking link below (over on the right of the page you will see “Download PDF” – go for it!)
The plots from the study say it all really:
For the full details on the Coronary Calcification Scan and CAC Score – go to: https://ihda.ie/
