Heart Disease Predictors Are Deficient

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women living in the United States. According to cardiologists at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (as reported in the Online Journal of Business), the frequently-used risk-factor scoring tool fails to identify one-third of the females that are at risk for developing heart disease. Lifestyle changes, such as an increase in exercise, weight reduction, and medication prescriptions are methods to help prevent cardiovascular disease. Therefore, knowing in advance the risk-factors is beneficial before the disease process ensues. "The Hopkins findings, the latest of which appeared last month in the online American Heart Journal, is believed to be one of the first critical assessments of the Framingham Risk Estimate (FRE) as the principal test for early detection of heart disease. The researchers wanted to determine why many women at risk for heart disease aren�t identified earlier."