Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online
One sign that may predict your risk of heart disease could simply be the signs of aging itself. Research presented at the American Heart Association´s Scientific Sessions 2012 suggests that if you look old, your heart feels old.
The new study found that those who had three to four aging signs had a 57 percent increased risk for heart attack, and a 39 percent increased risk for heart disease.
“The visible signs of aging reflect physiologic or biological age, not chronological age, and are independent of chronological age,” Anne Tybjaerg-Hansen, M.D., the study´s senior author, said in a press release.
The researchers analyzed over 10,000 participants 40 years and older in the Copenhagen Heart Study.
About 75 percent of the patients had frontoparietal baldness, which is a receding hairline at the temples, while 39 percent had crown top baldness.
Thirty-four percent of the participants had earlobe crease, and 678 of them had fatty deposits around the eye.
The researchers performed a follow-up for 35 years and found that 3,401 participants developed heart disease, and 1,708 had a heart attack.
Considering the previous data, the team found that those who had fatty deposits around the eyes were the strongest individual predictor of both heart attack and heart disease.
They said that heart attack and heart disease risk increased with each additional sign of aging in all age groups and among men and women. The highest risk was for those in their 70s and those with multiple signs of aging.
During the study, nurses and laboratory technicians noted the quantity of gray hair, prominence of wrinkles, the type and extent of baldness, the presence of earlobe crease and eyelid deposits.
“Checking these visible aging signs should be a routine part of every doctor´s physical examination,” Tybjaerg-Hansen said in the release.
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