Imagine you are 50 years old, but your PREVENT-Age is 60.
What does that actually mean?
PREVENT-Age expresses your predicted 10-year cardiovascular risk as an age. It compares your risk with that of a person who has an optimal cardiovascular risk-factor profile.
A PREVENT-Age of 60 in a 50-year-old means that their predicted cardiovascular risk is similar to that of a 60-year-old with optimal risk factors.
The difference can work in the other direction too. If your PREVENT-Age is lower than your chronological age, your cardiovascular risk profile is more favorable than would be expected from age alone.
This can make cardiovascular risk easier to understand. A percentage such as a 10-year risk may seem abstract, particularly in younger adults. Seeing the same risk expressed as an age can provide another perspective on how factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, diabetes and kidney function contribute to cardiovascular risk.
PREVENT-Age should always be considered alongside the actual cardiovascular risk estimate.
And it is important to understand what it does not mean: PREVENT-Age is not your biological age, and it does not mean that your heart is literally older or younger than you are.
It is a cardiovascular risk age — another way of expressing predicted cardiovascular risk.
