How Old Is My Heart?

A British Study Has Found That Four Out Of Five Adults Have Much Greater Heart Damage Than Expected For Their Age. Perhaps It’s Time To Put Your Ticker To The Test?

You’re only as old as you feel’ is how the saying goes. But does your heart feel more like an adolescent or a geriatric? If it had an ID, what age would it show? And would it match the age shown on your ID? Most of us don’t know how to answer these questions. But heart specialists are convinced that it’s one of the most important numbers when it comes to our health.

Our heart is a powerful organ – it beats 100,000 times in one single day, pumping five litres of blood through our body every minute to supply it with enough oxygen, nutrients, vitamins, minerals and messengers. Yet it’s also a sensitive organ. And our lifestyle makes up a whopping 70 percent of its risk factors, while our genes are only 30 percent responsible. In other words: certain habits will permanently overload and damage the heart, causing it to age faster than other organs. Factors such as alcohol, smoking, excess weight and even mental suffering add a few extra years to the heart’s clock compared to what doctors refer to as our ‘biological age’.

The seriousness of this problem has only just now been revealed by a major British study, which found that four out of five adults had an “old heart” – and therefore also an extremely high risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack or stroke.

Deceptively, the initial signs of a weak heart appear harmless. And indeed the first two stages cited by the New York Heart Association in relation to determining the extent of heart weakness sound unspectacular.