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How well do the regular risk factors for heart disease predict your chances of carking it in the next five years? How well do the regular risk factors for heart disease predict your chances of carking it in the next five years? (If you don't want to know, turn over to an easy-listening station right now.) These are factors like age, sex, smoking, cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, history of heart attack, and, no doubt, regularly tuning into an easy-listening radio station. A group of researchers has developed a score adding up all these factors - a bit like a fancy version of one of those "is your boyfriend ready to commit" scores in Cosmopolitan. Age is obviously important. Sex is too, with men scoring more than women. Cholesterol in men was worse too, whereas diabetes and smoking mattered more in women and younger people. Nearly 16 per cent of those with the highest scores were likely to have checked out in a five-year follow-up, compared to 0.1 per cent in those with the lowest scores. Treating blood pressure was good for your mortal coil, and the authors assumed that if you did something about the other preventable factors, you could improve your chances of being around longer than you might otherwise have thought. Mind you, if you're an easy-listening person, an early departure might be an act of mercy!
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