Scientists have developed an internet crystal ball which is a metabolic calculator for predicting patient risk of developing diabetes and heart disease accurately, as against traditional methods.
The tool will prompt patients to make changes to their lifestyle and avoid these illnesses.
The more specific information you can give to individuals at risk, the more they will understand it and be motivated to make some changes.
Doctors usually predict risk for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke by looking for five factors: obesity, high fasting triglycerides, high blood pressure, low HDL (good) cholesterol and high fasting blood sugar.
Those with abnormalities in three of these have been found to have metabolic syndrome and told there were at risk for future problems when it came to health.
The traditional approach also fails to consider variables such as race, ethnicity and gender.
On the other hand, the metabolic crystal ball, weighs the traditional risk factors and also takes into account race, gender and ethnicity to produce an easy-to-understand metabolic severity score.
The online calculator’s predictions lined up well with actual cases of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and the new study further bears that out.
The study looked, retroactively, at outcomes in more than 13,000 people and found that the tool was a better risk predictor than the individual risk factors alone.
