There is a calculator for cardiovascular diseases. Here's how it works – National

There is now a calculator to help you change your habits to reduce the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

Canadian researchers have created an algorithm to predict the risk of cardiovascular disease over five years. population health survey data related to hospital admission records of each respondent.

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The idea is to help people understand which aspects of their daily lives expose them to the most common group of diseases, including heart attacks and accidents. cerebrovascular diseases, so that they can take appropriate measures. changes, says the main author on the project. The findings were published Monday in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association

"The answer is more about healthy living as opposed to biomedical measures," says Dr. Doug Manuel, principal investigator at the Institute. evaluative clinical sciences and senior scientist with "[It’s] more about what you can do yourself or how your community affects you, rather than what pharmaceutical companies can do for you."

Unlike previous calculators, which work primarily as surveys, spewing out a risk level in the end, Manuel says that this calculator will be more interactive, back and forth. The risk of a person adjusts each time that she answers a question, allowing her to know immediately if her greatest risk comes from her smoking habit, her diet, or her lack. of Exercise

Health Surveys. In addition to diet, exercise and smoking, it takes into account alcohol consumption, stress, diabetes, hypertension, ethnicity, immigrant status, education and socio-economic status of the neighborhood in which the person lives. importance of maintaining good heart health

Manuel hopes that the calculator will prompt people to rethink who quickly accepts a drug to treat a symptom without understanding how it may relate to their overall health.

"He adds," You may know that you can improve your diet, but is this your biggest problem and up to how much?

If the information is more widely available and presented in According to Manuel, the calculator will live online at the Big Life project, which already hosts calculators intended to predict things like life expectancy, health care costs and risks of stroke. Manual expects to add more calculators to the list before long.

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Researchers are looking at calculators for diabetes and cancer. Another on dementia is nearing completion, he says. Ultimately, Manuel would like to see more comprehensive calculators that merge the data for all diseases.

"Everyone knows that there is a common risk, but we do not evaluate them as common risks."