A diagram showing the inner workings of an artery

The rising epidemic in obesity and diabetes in the U.S. is frustrating heart experts in their attempts to reduce heart disease. The message about living a healthy lifestyle and keeping weight down just doesn’t seem to be getting through. It is hoped, however, that looking at our health from a different perspective – in terms of our ‘vascular age’ we might be motivated to make the necessary lifestyle changes to cut our future risk of heart problems.

“There’s a saying that ‘you’re as old as your arteries,’ meaning that the state of your arteries is more important than your actual age in the evolution of heart disease and stroke,” Says Geetha Raghuveer, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine. “We found that the state of the arteries in [some] children is more typical of a 45-year-old than of someone their own age.”

How is vascular age calculated?

By taking into account such things as age, sex, cholesterol, blood pressure, whether or not you smoke, as well as any instances of stroke, heart failure or arterial disease, a health professional can tell us the ‘real’ age of our arteries. A 35-year-old might turn out to have the blood vessels of an average 80-year-old — a real shock to the system.

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