Heart disease risk could be affected by one surprising factor, new study finds

Hearts that are rounder shaped could be more prone to future cardiac disease, artificial intelligence

The shape of someone’s heart could be a predictor of future cardiac disease, a new study from Stanford University found. (iStock)

The shape of someone’s heart could be a predictor of future cardiac disease, a new study from Stanford

They found an overlap between the rounder-shaped hearts and a predisposition for heart disease.

“Most people who practice cardiology are well aware that after someone develops heart disease, the heart will look more spherical,” said Dr. Shoa Clarke, a preventive cardiologist and an instructor in the Stanford School of Medicine’s departments of medicine and pediatrics, in a press release announcing the findings. 

Rounder-shaped hearts showed a predisposition for heart disease.

Clarke was one of the study’s senior researchers, along with Dr. David Ouyang of the Smidt Heart Institute of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. 

The lead author was Milos Vukadinovic, a bioengineering student at UCLA.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among men and women in the U.S.; a person dies from the condition every 34 seconds.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among men and women in the U.S.; a person dies from the condition every 34 seconds. (iStock)

The research team was surprised by the strong link between heart roundness and the risk for future cardiomyopathy, Clarke told Fox News Digital. 

“It was possible that heart shape may not have told us anything different than measurements of heart size or strength,” he said. 

“But it turned out that heart shape provides additional information about the risk of genetics that is not picked up by other measurements.”

Rounder shape could indicate stress on the heart

Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, said that when used properly, AI can be “a clinician’s friend” when evaluating heart health.

“In this instance, AI appeared to show a correlation between roundness of the heart and development of cardiomyopathy, where the heart balloons out and is a less effective pump,” Dr. Siegel told Fox News Digital. 

“This makes some sense, because the heart is typically more oblong,” he explained. 

“A rounder shape could conceivably put more stress or pressure on the valves and walls, potentially leading to this outcome.” He was not involved in the new study. 

"Heart shape provides additional information about risk and genetics that is not picked up by other measurements," one of the study's researchers told Fox News Digital.

“Heart shape provides additional information about risk and genetics that is not picked up by other measurements,” one of the study’s researchers told Fox News Digital. (iStock)

If the new study is confirmed, it would add another element to how cardiologists examine patients’ echocardiograms (ultrasound of the heart), said Dr. Siegel.

Medical imaging could hold more insights, researchers say

The researchers believe this is just the tipping point for much more data-rich information from MRI imagery.

“A key takeaway of our work is that current strategies for assessing the heart are good, but they were established decades ago, before the era of big data,” Clarke told Fox News Digital. 

“When used properly, AI can be a clinician’s friend.”

“We now have the opportunity to think more broadly and ask what other features of the heart can tell us about the risk and the biology of disease.”

Co-author Ouyang told the journal Med that there is an extensive amount of untapped information that physicians aren’t currently using. 

The study authors indicated that more research is needed into how heart shape can or should be considered by doctors when making medical decisions for patient care.
SOURCE FOX NEWS

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