Hello, welcome everybody, this is doctor Bolad, board certified physician in cardiology, interventional
cardiology and internal medicine, certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine.
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my subscribers, thank you for your continued support. Today I will talk to you about how
to calculate your risk of developing cardiovascular disease, and at the end of this video you
should be able to calculate your own risk. This is a very important topic that I as a
cardiologist usually go through with my patients. This assessment is also needed for all people
between 20 and 79 years of age without known coronary artery disease. Periodic risk assessment
offers the opportunity to identify cardiovascular disease risk factors and offer guidance on
the appropriate management of specific risk factors such as dietary modifications for
high blood pressure or high cholesterol level. There are different risk calculators we use
in cardiology. However, in the United States, the American College of Cardiology and the
American Heart Association recommend using the POOLED COHORT EQUATIONS CARDIOVASCULAR
RISK CALCULATOR. This calculator was developed using data from non-Hispanic whites and African
Americans. For using this calculator, you need to have a blood test of your total cholesterol
level and its LDL and HDL fractions and you need to have your blood pressure reading.
After that, you can access the risk assessment calculator through the web using TOOLS.ACC.ORG
and click on ASCVD Risk Estimator Plus. You can also download the app onto your smart
phone either from the Play Store for android users or AppStore for iphone users, by searching
for the ASCVD RISK ESTIMATOR PLUS. ASCVD stands for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
Here is a picture of the web version of this cardiovascular risk calculator.
If your blood cholesterol levels are reported in milligrams per deciliter, then keep the
Units of Measure, as pointed here by the arrow, keep at as US. If the cholesterol levels are
reported in millimoles per liter, then click on SI as shown by the arrow.
Then enter the following data into the calculator: Age in years
Gender whether male or female, Race whether white, African American or other,
Systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. As an example, if your blood pressure
is 120/80 mmHg, then the systolic pressure is the first number of 120 mm Hg and the diastolic
pressure is the second number of 80 mm Hg. Total cholesterol, HDL Cholesterol and LDL
cholesterol levels from the blood test you performed. Please note the units as mentioned
above. If the tests are reported in mg/dl, then the Units of Measure at the top of the
screen should be US, and if the test is reported in mmol/L, then the units of measure should
be SI. History of diabetes.
Smoking History On high blood pressure treatment, whether
you are taking blood pressure medications. On Statin treatment, whether you are taking
medications such as simvastatin, atorvastatin, rosuvastatin and other statin medications
to lower your cholesterol level. On aspirin therapy, whether you are taking
aspirin. As soon as you enter the data, then the 10
year risk and lifetime risk shows on the top of the screen as shown here. Here is an example
of a person with low risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in a 10 year time period.
And here is an example of a person who is high risk.
Low-risk is defined as <5%, borderline risk is 5 to 7.4%, intermediate risk is 7.5 to
19.9%, and high risk is 20% or more. If your risk is ANYTHING BUT LOW, then you have to
work to try to reduce your risk by controlling your blood pressure, lowering your cholesterol
by diet and statin medications and stopping smoking if you are a smoker. You then need
to re-run the numbers to see how much you reduced your risk by controlling the risk
factors. A potential limitation of this calculator is that family history of premature cardiovascular
disease is not included in the model. If you have such a family history of premature cardiovascular
disease, then your risk is higher than outlined by this calculator, and you need to be aggressive
in reducing the other risk factors to lower your risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
If you have any questions about what I presented to you today, then subscribe to my channel
and share your question in the comments section below and I will reply to you. If you have
a question that you would not like to share in public, then follow me on twitter @DoctorBolad
and then send me a private twitter Direct Message and I will reply to you. Please like
and share this video with family and friends. This is Doctor Bolad, helping you with your
heart health, thanks for watching, and talk to you soon.