Risk Factors in the Prevention of Heart Disease
May 25th, 2007
Risk Factors for early heart attack, stroke or death are sometimes called biomarkers. A recent reanalysis of data in 3209 participants of the Framingham Heart Study showed that, in healthy people, 10 commonly used biomarkers do not add sufficient prognostic information to recommend their use in normal healthy people even though brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), hsCRP, urinary albumin/creatinine ratio, homocysteine and renin were predictive for death. London Medical offers a comprehensive Risk Factor Assessment as part of the Heart Protection Plan or when diabetes, hypertension, a raised cholesterol or significant family history suggest that it could be useful. At present, the inclusion of brain natriuretic peptide and lipoprotein associated phospholipase A2 in our risk panel is being evaluated.
