Predicting Heart Disease

The UK National Health Service is piloting these scores as a way to identify adults who have a high risk of developing heart disease. The idea is that physicians can recommend lifestyle changes and routine screening to those with high risk scores. But researchers are still grappling with the limitations of these scores, says Peter Visser at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. One issue is that genetic variation can explain only a proportion of the total risk. Environmental factors such as diet or air quality, for example, are also important contributors.