It can be hard to motivate yourself to take preventative measures against heart attack, if you don’t know if you’re even at risk of having one. According to new research, however, a standard blood test can now provide that information.

For the study, Prof. Johan Sundström and colleagues at Sweden’s Uppsala University started out with access to cold-stored blood samples that had recently been drawn from 169,053 people in six different European population groups.

None of those people had previously experienced a heart attack. Within six months, however, 420 of them did. The scientists then analyzed the pre-heart-attack blood samples of those individuals, along with the samples of 1,598 healthy people (from the original 169,053), weighted to provide an even representation of the six groups.

It was discovered that in the blood of the individuals who would soon have a heart attack, there were higher levels of 48 proteins and 43 metabolites. The elevated presence of these molecules – when combined with factors such as age, sex and systolic blood pressure – was thus found to be a reliable indicator of an impending heart attack.

Importantly, whereas traditional blood sample analysis may warn that a person is likely to eventually experience a heart attack, this analysis warns that a heart attack is likely to occur soon. And what’s more, the information can be obtained from standard blood tests that are routinely conducted.

“The samples that are already taken in healthcare now are enough to predict the risk,” said Sundström. “We hope that this will increase people’s motivation to take their preventive medicine or stop smoking, for example.”

A paper on the study was recently published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research.

Source: Uppsala University