How old is your heart? Simple quiz reveals your risk of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years

If you’ve ever wondered how likely it is that you’ll have a heart attack or stroke, a quick quiz can give you the answer.

Using information about your health and daily habits, the test gives you a chance that the worrisome event will occur in the next 10 years.

Find out your heart's age and risk of fatal heart attack and stroke

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Find out your heart’s age and risk of fatal heart attack and strokePhoto credit: Shutterstock

It’s especially useful for those who may be concerned about their heart health but have the opportunity to improve their lifestyle.

The test only takes five minutes and also gives you a ‘cardiovascular age’, which determines if your heart and arteries are aging faster than you.

Take the My Health Checkup test here.

My health check will ask you for your age, gender, height, weight and waist size.

It will then ask for your cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose levels – but if you don’t know them you can select ‘I don’t know’ – and how much you exercise.

It also takes into account whether you have heart disease or peripheral vascular disease, or whether you or your parents have diabetes.

Once you get your cardiovascular age — the lower the better — you’ll learn your 10-year cardiovascular disease risk.

The Sun conducted the test on a 66-year-old man who is 6’1″ tall, weighs 180 pounds, and has a 40-inch waist.

He has bad cholesterol and blood pressure and smokes.

However, he trains three hours a week.

His cardiovascular age is 70.2 years and he has a 43.9 percent chance of having a heart attack or stroke in the next 10 years.

First, get your heart health age

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First, get your heart health agePhoto credit: My health check
Then you will find out how high your risk of a heart attack or stroke is in the next 10 years - and how you can reduce it

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Then you will find out how high your risk of a heart attack or stroke is in the next 10 years – and how you can reduce itPhoto credit: My health check

But the experts say he has three modifiable risk factors that, if improved, could lower his odds to 19.3 percent.

The biggest change he could make would be to quit smoking.

Fortunately, while some things that contribute to cardiovascular disease risk are immutable, such as your genetics, there are many that can.

Your heart’s health largely depends on keeping your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels under control.

It’s no surprise that getting regular exercise, preventing obesity through your diet, not smoking, and limiting your alcohol consumption are all key.

In terms of diet, a low-fat, high-fiber diet is recommended.

Unsaturated fats like avocados, nuts and oily fish are good for you.

However, avoid the unsaturated fats such as meat pies, sausages, hard cheeses, cakes and cookies, which do not have a positive effect on your cholesterol levels.

Salt and sugar in the diet should also be closely monitored to keep blood sugar and blood pressure under control.

But many Britons find it difficult to maintain healthy habits.

Terrifying statistics

Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of death, with around a quarter of deaths in the UK being attributed to cardiovascular disease.

That’s more than 160,000 deaths a year (the size of the city of Oxford), or 460 a day, says the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

Around 34,000 of these deaths are due to stroke and there are 1.4 million other stroke survivors in the UK, many with disabilities.

According to BHF, high blood pressure is the leading modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease in the UK, affecting almost three in ten people.

But half of them don’t even know that they have this disease that has no symptoms.

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Around 50 percent of heart attacks and strokes are associated with high blood pressure.

Meanwhile, adults with diabetes (more than five million in the UK) are two to three times more likely to develop heart disease and almost twice as likely to die from heart disease or stroke.

Aila Slisco

Aila Slisco is a Dailynationtoday U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. He has covered climate change extensively, as well as healthcare and crime. Aila Slisco joined Dailynationtoday in 2023 from the Daily Express and previously worked for Chemist and Druggist and the Jewish Chronicle. He is a graduate of Cambridge University. Languages: English. You can get in touch with me by emailing: ailaslisco@dailynationtoday.com.

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