gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: To raise public awareness about cardiovascular disease (CVD) risks and prevention, web-based heart age calculators are used worldwide [1]. They evaluate clinical and lifestyle factors to predict an individual’s heart age or the risk of a CVD event. The Assmann Foundation for Prevention launched a heart age calculator, the „PROCAM-Gesundheitstest“, which was used over 70.000 times in Germany. Here, we report on its user demographics. Our objective is to quantify public interest and prominent risk groups.

Methods: The test can be accessed via https://www.herzalter-bestimmen.de/ and utilizes nine variables - gender, age, systolic blood pressure (SBP), LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, smoking, family history, diabetes mellitus and triglycerides - to calculate heart age and the risk of suffering a heart attack or sudden death from CVD within the next ten years [2]. While providing blood lipid levels is optional, we focus on tests with all variables submitted. Entered values are limited to a permissible range. Because the number of completed tests per user is not tracked, the dataset may contain multiple entries per individual.

Results: We report on the demographics of 72515 anonymous website entries (female: 54.62 %, male: 45.38 %). Female users had a lower average age of 56.6 years (SD 11.54) in comparison to males with 59.35 years (SD 12.41). Less than half of the users reported a family history of heart disease (female: 33.77 %, male: 27.67 %). Only 9.62 % of female and 14.29 % of male users reported having diabetes, 15.55 % of females and 12.89 % of males are smokers. 15.69% of women (average age: 57.05, SBP: 131.97, LDL: 198.51, HDL: 50.05, triglycerides: 174.28) and 9.55% of men (average age: 55.12, SBP: 137.25, LDL: 192.75, HDL 44.43, triglycerides: 206.82) had heart ages ≥ 5 years above their actual age. 72.16% of women (average age: 56.53, SBP: 123.6, LDL: 133.54, HDL 63.44, triglycerides: 111.35) and 84.28% of men (average age: 60.1, SBP: 128.47, LDL: 129.83, HDL 54.63, triglycerides: 127.81) had heart ages ≤ their actual age. The users are concentrated in Germany's metropolitan areas, predominantly from the southwest.

Discussion: The calculator was equally used by all genders, while the majority of users were 50 years or older, which is more representative of the elderly population [3]. Compared to users of foreign heart age calculators, German users received on average younger heart ages than their actual age [4], [5]. In this context, it is important to note that different calculators vary in their underlying model. The same individual may receive a different heart age depending on the calculator used. Moreover, the data reflects website users, and not necessarily the German population.

Conclusion: According to our knowledge, this is the first report of a sizable dataset of a heart age calculator launched in Germany. The findings indicate a high level of public interest in heart age calculators with an intuitive metric. The interest group is currently centered more towards the elderly population. User follow-ups are needed to assess impact on user behavior regarding risk factor awareness and lifestyle changes.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

The authors declare that an ethics committee vote is not required.