Scientists have developed an internet crystal ball

  • 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.

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