AI helps doctors estimate your heart’s ‘age’
Mayo Clinic researchers use artificial intelligence to compare heart age to chronological age, and say lifestyle changes can make a difference in as little as a week
(Aging Untold) — Researchers at Mayo Clinic are using artificial intelligence to analyze heart data and determine how old a person’s heart is compared to their actual age and what they can do to close the gap.
How AI works
The technology analyzes echocardiograms to calculate a heart age based on the organ’s health. Researchers then compare that number to the patient’s chronological age.
Dr. Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a preventive cardiologist at Mayo Clinic, said the findings carry significant implications.
“When the computer is telling us that this individual is older than what this individual truly is in terms of years of age, we have seen that those individuals die sooner,” Lopez-Jimenez said.
The reverse is also true.
Lopez-Jimenez said patients whose hearts test younger than their chronological age “live longer and have less heart attacks and less heart events of any type.”
What you can do
Lopez-Jimenez said people whose heart age exceeds their real age can narrow or even eliminate that gap through lifestyle changes — and the process does not have to take long.
“What we are doing these days is to use this information to motivate people to change behavior, to exercise more, to stop smoking, to worry less, to work on their stress level,” Lopez-Jimenez said.
He said changes can be seen in as little as a week.
Lopez-Jimenez said working on those factors can reduce heart age and improve overall health.
Beyond heart testing, Dr. Rhea Rogers, a board-certified physician and Aging Untold expert, noted that additional testing now exists to assess how different organs are aging and at what pace, offering more opportunities to intervene.
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