What is Heart Age?
Heart Age engages people in their heart health by estimating and expressing their preventable cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors as their Heart Age – which could be older, younger or the same as their chronological age.
It is a translation of a well-established Framingham risk score.
The World Heart Federation is a supporter of Heart Age as it engages people in their heart health and encourages them to take positive diet and lifestyle changes.
What is the Heart Age tool?
This unique tool enables people at all levels of preventable CVD risk factors to find out how old or young their heart is compared to their chronological age. It means people can be motivated to take care of their heart now so that they keep their heart as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
WHF and Unilever partnership
The World Heart Federation and Unilever are committed to making the world’s hearts healthy. Through partnership activities we want to motivate a 100 million people to take the Heart Age test and lower elevated Heart Ages by three years, on average, by 2020.
| If Heart Age can engage individuals and motivate them to change their diet and lifestyle for the better, no matter what their level of risk, then this could be a breakthrough in the global effort towards improved CVD prevention”. (Pekka Puska, President of the World Heart Federation) |
At the global media launch, Unilever unveiled a new report entitled ‘What If People’s Hearts Stayed Young?’, which publishes, for the first time, the theoretical effect on the numbers of heart attacks and strokes (CVD events) over the next decade that might be achieved if people estimated to have an elevated Heart Age were able to reduce it by three years. The modelling used data from the UK and USA as examples. Read the report >
How is Heart Age calculated?
Heart Age is established using information on factors that influence people’s heart health: age, gender, blood pressure, total and HDL (good) cholesterol, smoking and diabetic status.
These ‘risk factors’ are used to determine an individual’s personal risk of CVD over a 10 year period.
Science of the tool
The Heart Age Tool is underpinned by 40 years of heart health research and uses statistical models published in scientific papers in collaboration with scientists from Boston University.
How are people motivated?
Motivation is offered via a tailored 12-week Heart Health Diet and Lifestyle Plan, to help and guide people to reduce their CVD risk factors and lower their Heart Age.