Diabetes, stroke… A new test based on blood samples can help predict the risks

Diabetes, kidney or heart failure, coronary disease or chronic pulmonary disease, atrial fibrillation, cardiac arrhythmia, heart attack, stroke or dementia … Thanks to a simple test that considers the age of the patient and the information drawn from a straightforward blood test, it is now possible to detect whether a person might develop one of these common chronic illnesses in the next three years.

This useful clinical tool, which is easy to reproduce and does not constitute any additional workload for general practitioners, was developed by an international team of researchers, who presented their findings to the annual American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference, in Washington.

In the United States, more than half the adult population suffers from at least one of these chronic illnesses, so researchers hope that this test can be used to help physicians pinpoint which patients have the highest risk of developing said diseases.

According to predictions, the number of people suffering from diabetes, coronary disease, cardiac arrhythmia, heart attack or stroke is set to rise by 40% in the next ten years in the United States.

Heidi May, epidemiologist at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City and the principal author of this study, says that this test should enable doctors to better "track" those patients who need more personalised care and more regular monitoring.

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