Cleveland Clinic research shows ‘estimated age’ from exercise stress test is better indicator than actual age of how long you live
Cleveland Clinic researchers have developed a tool to calculate a person’s physiological age based on their exercise performance during a stress test and found this is a better predictor of how long they’ll live compared to their actual age.
Researchers studied 126,356 patients who were referred for an exercise treadmill testing at Cleveland Clinic between Jan. 1, 1991, and Feb. 27, 2015, to evaluate whether a patient’s estimated age based on their exercise performance is a better predictor of mortality when compared to chronological age.
The average age of study participants was 53.5 years old and 59 percent were male. The paper was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
The study found that the estimated age based on exercise performance was better in predicating survival than the patients’ actual age. This held true for both male and female cohorts, when considered separately. Among those included, 55% of males and 57% of females between the ages of 50 and 60 years had their estimated age younger than their chronologic age.
According to the CDC, heart disease is the leading cause of death among women and men in the United States. Stress testing is a common diagnostic tool for cardiovascular disease.
