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How Old is Your Heart? Find out with this New Online Tool.

The Heart Age Calculator calculates heart age based on questions about sex, age, height, weight, blood pressure, smoking status, and offers useful tips and resources to improve heart health. Photo credit: Harvard.
Heart Health, BK Reader
Photo credit: Harvard.edu

The Heart Age Calculator calculates heart age based on questions about sex, age, height, weight, blood pressure, smoking status, and offers useful tips and resources to improve heart health.

How old is your heart? Find out.
Photo credit: Harvard.edu

Thanks to a new NYC Heart Age Calculator, an online tool launched by the New York City Health Department, New Yorkers can now find out and determine their risk for heart disease and stroke. One in four adult New Yorkers — 1.8 million — reported having high blood pressure, a key risk factor for heart disease and stroke, which together account for 22 percent of premature deaths in NYC.

"New Yorkers are famously young at heart, but heart disease and stroke remain leading causes of death in New York City," said Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett. "Using the Heart Age Calculator is a simple, easy first step that lets New Yorkers check on their heart age and takes steps toward heart health."

The Heart Age Calculator reports risk by giving the user their heart age compared to their actual age. The higher a heart age is compared to the real age, the greater the risk of heart disease and stroke. 

Based on surveys of New York City adults, the average New Yorker has a heart age nearly six years older than their actual age and Brooklynites, on average, had a heart age 5.9 years older.

The NYC Heart Age Calculator calculates heart age based on answers to questions about sex, age, height, weight, blood pressure, smoking status, if a person takes blood pressure medication or has diabetes. Along with an estimated heart age, the tool provides all users with recommendations and resources to improve their health, including tips to promote healthy eating and active living, and support to quit smoking.

People using the calculator should use their latest blood pressure measurement. Those who do not know their blood pressure can get it checked at hundreds of pharmacies across Brooklyn and the city. In March, the health department added more than 1,200 locations across the five boroughs to the NYC Health Map, an online tool New Yorkers can use to identify different health services available in their communities. The department has also placed 55 blood pressure kiosks in areas with high rates of high blood pressure, including North and Central Brooklyn, East and Central Harlem, and the South Bronx.

To find more resources about high blood pressure, visit nyc.gov/health/HeartAge.




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