New Heart Risk Calculator Released by Experts

New heart health recommendations are extending to consider younger generations' long-term risks of heart disease as determined by a risk assessment took called the JBS3 risk calculator.

New Joint British Societies' consensus recommendations for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) note that people could live healthier and longer lived if doctors assessed patient risks of CVD from younger ages.

According to the recommendations, published in Heart, a British Medical Journal publication, recommendations for the prevention of CDV have previously focused on patients at relatively short-term risk -- approximately ten years after middle age -- of developing dangerous heart complications. In the recommendation's forward, the Joint British Societies acknowledged that the revolutionary treatment options and information discerned from this focus has resulted in "stunning declines in CVD mortality over the last 40-50 years in North America, Western Europe and other high-income countries."

However, the new recommendations reflect a commonly held belief that it is now time to extend focus to a more long-term strategy, assessing the CVD risk of younger demographics so they can make appropriate changes in diet and habits to proactively cut CVD risk rates earlier in life.

These newest recommendations include a push for the use of the JBS3 risk calculator, which determines the physiological age of a person's heart and their risk of CVD using the latest available and confirmed scientific evidence.

Using family history and lifestyle risk factors, this new calculator can predict how many more years an individuals will have before they are likely to experience a health attack of stroke.

Some people might find this data alarming and morbid, but authors of the risk calculator claim that the tool can be used to motivate patients and even their physicians to take even stronger preventative measure towards ensuring heart health.

The JBS3 risk calculator is available for use at the Joint British Societies' third recommendation (JBS3) website.

The CVD prevention recommendations were published in Vol. 100 of Heart this March.