Heart age converts a ten-year cardiovascular risk score into a single number of years, and to produce one you need a blood pressure reading, a cholesterol panel reporting total and HDL cholesterol, and a short medical history. QRISK3, the algorithm used across the UK’s National Health Service, estimates your chance of a heart attack or stroke in the next decade, then reports the age of a person with that risk but healthy risk factors. The only part you cannot do at home is the lipid panel, which needs a blood draw.
What you need
- Age and sex. QRISK3 is validated for adults aged 25 to 84.
- Ethnicity, and in the UK a postcode for a deprivation score; elsewhere it uses an average.
- A systolic blood pressure, ideally averaged over several seated readings rather than one clinic number.
- A lipid panel giving total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol; the model uses the ratio, not either alone.
- Height and weight, for body mass index.
- Smoking status, from never through ex-smoker to heavy current smoker.
- Diabetes status, and whether you take blood pressure medication.
- Whether a parent or sibling had angina or a heart attack before 60.
- Other conditions the model counts: chronic kidney disease, atrial fibrillation, migraine, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, severe mental illness, regular steroid tablets, atypical antipsychotics, and, in men, erectile dysfunction.
How the measurement works
The calculation runs in two steps. First the model estimates absolute risk, from coefficients fitted to millions of anonymized UK general-practice records. Each input moves the estimate in a known direction: older age, higher systolic pressure, a higher total-to-HDL ratio, current smoking, diabetes, a higher body mass index and each listed condition push risk up; their absence leaves you at the floor for your age and sex. Systolic pressure carries a lot of weight, so it helps to know which band your reading sits in, which is what Blood pressure categories shows.
The second step is the translation. The model runs again for a reference person of your sex and ethnicity who has never smoked, whose untreated blood pressure, cholesterol ratio and body mass index sit in the healthy range, and who has none of the listed conditions. The age at which that person reaches your ten-year risk is your heart age. The arithmetic is not something to do by hand: Heart Age QRISK runs it for you from the nine risk factors of the ACC/AHA pooled cohort equations, the US-calibrated relative of QRISK that builds heart age the same way.
How to read the result
Heart age has no standardized bands: it is not an independent measurement but your ten-year risk restated in years, so what matters is the gap between it and your real age. The percentage underneath is what clinicians act on, and it does have published categories.
| Ten-year risk of a cardiovascular event | Category used in US guidelines |
|---|---|
| Below 5 percent | Low |
| 5 to under 7.5 percent | Borderline |
| 7.5 to under 20 percent | Intermediate |
| 20 percent or above | High |
UK practice uses a single trigger instead: NICE treats a QRISK3 score of 10 percent or more over ten years as the point at which a statin should be discussed. The same idea approached through the heart itself appears in Cardiac biological age.
What it does not tell you
It does not measure your arteries: no plaque is seen, no calcium counted, no stiffness recorded. A calcium scan or carotid ultrasound looks at structure directly; heart age only re-expresses a probability, so a reassuring result is compatible with existing disease.
It is a population statistic: it describes what happens to many people who share your inputs, not what will happen to you, or when. Because the comparison uses an idealized reference person, most middle-aged adults get a heart age older than their birthday, a gap that can frighten without changing what should be done.
Calibration is population-specific: QRISK3 was built in UK general-practice data and the pooled cohort equations in US cohorts, so both can misestimate risk elsewhere, and ethnicity is coded coarsely. Neither is intended for people who already have cardiovascular disease or familial hypercholesterolemia. Both leave out lipoprotein(a), apolipoprotein B, coronary calcium, fitness and diet, and a heart age that improves between runs reflects the inputs you changed, not your blood vessels.
Related reading
Disclaimer. This article is for information only and does not replace medical advice. Talk to a qualified clinician before changing anything about your health.