Mammograms are commonly used to find breast cancer, but new research shows they might also reveal important signs of heart disease—the number one cause of death for adults.
Researchers found that the amount of calcium in the breast arteries, which shows up on mammograms, can be a warning sign of future heart problems.
This new study was led by Dr. Matthew Nudy from Penn State College of Medicine. He presented the results at a major medical meeting in December 2025.
The study found that women who had more calcium in their breast arteries, or whose calcium levels got worse over time, were more likely to have a heart attack, stroke, heart failure, or even die from heart-related problems.
Calcium in arteries is a sign that the blood vessels are becoming stiff and unhealthy. Usually, doctors use a CT scan to check for calcium in the heart’s arteries, but these scans can be expensive and expose patients to more radiation.
Mammograms, on the other hand, are already recommended for women starting at age 40 and are much more common. So using mammograms to check for heart disease risk might be a smart way to use existing tests for more than one purpose.
In this study, researchers looked at health records from over 10,000 women who had more than one mammogram at a medical center in the U.S. The average age of the women was 56. Each woman had about 4 years between her first and last mammogram.
The researchers used special computer software with artificial intelligence to check how much calcium was in the arteries in the breast and how much it had changed over time.
The researchers gave each mammogram a score for calcium build-up. Women were placed into four groups: no calcium, mild, moderate, and severe. About 19% of the women had some calcium in their arteries at the beginning. Those with more calcium had a higher chance of a heart-related problem in the future.
Women whose calcium levels moved from one category to a worse one also had higher risks. For example, women who had no calcium at first but showed calcium later had a 41% higher risk of heart problems or death.
Women who moved from mild to a higher level had a 59% higher risk, and those who moved from moderate to severe had a 93% higher risk.
This study is one of the first to show that calcium in breast arteries can grow over time and that faster growth means higher risk. The findings suggest that doctors could use mammograms not just to find cancer but also to check for heart disease risk in women.
Dr. Nudy explained that current tools to predict heart disease may not work as well for women, and new ways to find risk earlier could help save lives.
Since mammograms are already widely used, adding this kind of check may be easy and cost-effective. However, more research is needed before this becomes a routine part of care.
The study was done with help from researchers at Monash University in Australia, the University of Southern California, and the medical imaging company CureMetrix.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk, and herbal supplements could harm your heart rhythm.
For more health information, please see recent studies about how drinking milk affects risks of heart disease and cancer, and results showing strawberries could help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
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