Researchers May be Able to Predict Heart Attacks

Heart attacks are unpredictable. Even though doctors know that obesity, genetic makeup, smoking and a sedentary lifestyle can be factors in developing heart disease, cardiologists still can't tell who will suffer from a heart attack and when."The big problem is how do you distinguish the patient who's at risk of a heart attack versus the patient who has stable coronary disease," said Dr. Stephen Epstein, with MedStar Heart Institute.Now researchers at MedStar Heart Institute in Washington, D.C. say they may have the answer. It's a new test that detects markers or characteristics in the blood that are linked to the risk of having a heart attack. If a patient has all three of these abnormal biomarkers, they have an 18 percent chance of having a heart attack or dying from one within a year."So it could have a profound impact on how the physician treats the patient once he knows what the biomarker score is," said Dr. Epstein.Dr. Epstein says the remarkable thing about the biomarker test is the short term predictions doctors get, that they can't get by simply looking at a person's health history."You can't use genetics to sensitively distinguish who is at risk in the next year or two. It could tell you who's at risk over the next 20 years, but what the physician also has to know and perhaps even more importantly, is who's at risk in the next few months," he said.Researchers hope the test will be available for patients within the next few years.