Dr Oz: The PLAC Test + Determine Risk For Heart Disease

Dr Oz: New Test For Heart Disease

Dr Oz said you could have heart disease and not even know it. Right now, it’s a bit of a guessing game that is determined by risk factors like blood pressure, weight, and cholesterol. So what if doctors could look inside your arteries to determine if you have heart disease right now? There’s a groundbreaking blood test that can determine who needs to be treated and how aggressively they need to be treated. The test is called the PLAC.

Right now, doctors have to guess what’s going on inside their patients’ hearts by looking at other factors, rather than being able to truly look at the blood vessels inside the heart and the buildup of plaque. He said the risk factors are incredibly important, but they’re only hints as to what is going on inside.

Dr Oz: Blood Test For Heart Disease Risk

The good news is that it’s just a simple blood test. He had the test done before the show, along with a few other women who said they had no risk factors for heart disease. Dr Oz started by sharing his own results, which were normal. He said that means that if he does have plaque, it’s not as risk of becoming a problem. If he were to have a risk factor, his doctor wouldn’t have to treat him as aggressively.

Dr Oz then turned to the women, most of whom also tested normal. But then there were three who had signs of inflammation. One woman was just 29 years old and was surprised by her results. “There’s no other way to describe it other than scary,” she said.

Dr Oz: Determine Your Heart Disease Risk

Another woman who had signs of inflammation said she was surprised because she has no other risk factors and thought she was doing a pretty good job until she got the numbers. She said it told her that she needed to act a little more aggressively. Dr Oz said although the tests can be scary, they’re our allies.

The third woman who found that she had signs of inflammation shared that she was 42 years old and wanted to know if there were ways she could turn back time. Dr Oz said absolutely because you can change your body and have a do-over. Dr Oz suggested that one of the women have her parents get tested as well, because it obviously couldn’t hurt.

Dr Oz explained that hormones can also play a part because when women go through menopause, their cholesterol usually goes up by about 10% and their heart attack risk increases three times.