Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have developed a new way to find out how old your heart really is—by using an MRI scan. This new method can show whether your heart is aging faster than your body, especially in people with health problems like high blood pressure, diabetes, or obesity.
The discovery could help doctors detect heart issues earlier and prevent serious conditions like heart attacks or strokes.
The study, which will be published in the European Heart Journal Open, is being called a breakthrough in heart health. Dr. Pankaj Garg, the lead researcher from UEA’s Norwich Medical School and a heart doctor at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, explained the idea like this: imagine learning that your heart is much older than your actual age.
For people with certain health conditions, this is often true. The new MRI technique doesn’t just look at how many years you’ve lived—it checks how well your heart is actually working.
The research team worked with hospitals in the UK, Spain, and Singapore. They looked at MRI scans from 557 people. Of those, 191 were healthy, while the other 366 had health problems like obesity, diabetes, or high blood pressure.
Using detailed images from the scans, they studied the heart’s size and how strongly it pumps blood. Based on this information, they created a formula that estimates the “functional age” of the heart.
The results were striking. In healthy people, the heart’s age matched their real age. But in people with health conditions, the heart often seemed much older. For example, a 50-year-old person with high blood pressure might have a heart that works like it’s 55 or older. In some cases, hearts aged much faster—by 10 years or more.
Dr. Garg said this could be a “game-changer” in the way doctors care for the heart. Heart disease is one of the world’s biggest killers, and it usually isn’t found until people have symptoms like chest pain or shortness of breath.
By then, the damage might already be serious. But with this new MRI tool, doctors might be able to spot early warning signs even before symptoms begin.
Knowing your heart’s real age could also motivate people to make healthier choices. If a scan shows your heart is aging faster than expected, you might feel more urgency to eat better, exercise regularly, quit smoking, or follow your doctor’s advice. It could also help doctors decide which patients need treatment sooner to protect their hearts.
Hosam Assadi, a PhD student at UEA who worked on the project, said it was exciting to see how this technique might save lives. He hopes that one day, checking your heart’s true age with an MRI could become a routine part of medical checkups.
The study involved many partners across the world, including hospitals and universities in the UK, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Spain. Together, they hope this research will lead to better ways of preventing and treating heart disease.
In conclusion, this study shows that MRI scans can reveal a heart’s functional age—how well it performs compared to how old you are. This new method could give doctors a better way to detect heart problems early, especially in people with risk factors.
It could also encourage people to take action to protect their hearts before it’s too late. With more research and wider use, this technique could become a key tool in fighting one of the deadliest diseases in the world.
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The research findings can be found in European Heart Journal Open.
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