K-State doctoral candidate validates new way of predicting heart risk
What if we could better forecast heart disease risk for people in their 30s?
We can, thanks to the American Heart Association’s new way to calculate cardiovascular risk, and to Britton Scheuermann, a K-State kinesiology doctoral candidate, who has validated the new formulas based on millions of patients.
Working with Carl Ade, associate professor and director of K-State’s Clinical Integrated Physiology Laboratory, Scheuermann tested the equations in AHA’s new app known as PREVENT.
“I look at PREVENT like the option offense in football because it gives you more variety,” said Scheuermann. “Kidney and liver health and other factors are coming into play with this score. It gives the quarterback a clear picture of what he needs to read in the game.”
Scheuermann was the lead author on a paper that shared their results in JAMA Network Open, a journal published by the American Medical Association.
His team’s game plan included using a database of nearly 200 million participants to determine if the equations accurately predict the occurrence of cardiovascular disease risk.
“We found they do a great job of identifying people at high risk versus low risk,” Scheuermann said.
The new equations, updates to the AHA’s previous models, provide patients who are 30 years or older and their medical providers with more precise scores. These scores use patient factors like age, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and other metrics to calculate their 10- and 30-year risks of total cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack, stroke and heart failure.
“Each bit of work is a little step forward,” Scheuermann said. “With K-State’s Stormont Vail partnership, we’re starting to make changes in our health care here and helping people in Manhattan and surrounding communities to better understand their cardiovascular health.”
Written by: Heather Ackerly
