WASHINGTON — What if a test could tell you whether you’re at risk for a heart attack?
It’s called the PLAC test, and it detects an enzyme that’s given off by the walls of arteries when they’re inflamed by “junk that builds up,” says Dr. Warren Levy, a cardiologist at Virginia Heart.
Levy told WTOP on Tuesday that the test has been around for a while, but until now was only for people who already knew they were at risk of heart disease or heart attack.
He says the Food and Drug Administration recently made it more widely available, so now anyone can tell by their PLAC-test results whether they’re at “significantly higher risk of a cardiac event or a stroke, and therefore be much more aggressive with risk-factor modification” — steps such as watching your weight, cholesterol and blood pressure, quitting smoking and other “things that we know work.”
Early detection is critical, Levy says: “35 or 40 percent of people will die as their first symptom of heart disease.” That number is even higher among black women, Levy says: “They don’t have symptoms, then they have events.”
It’s not really necessary for people whose doctors say are at no risk for heart disease, Levy adds, but “Anyone with any risk factors, I think it’s something their physicians need to consider now.”
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