The X’s and O’s of human heart care

Physiology doctoral student Britton Scheuermann is creating a winning playbook for cardiologists and heart care practitioners.

IIn the game of football, success hinges on strategy — coaches draw up plays, run them in practice and refine them before taking them to the gridiron. Researchers play a similar role in the fight against cardiovascular disease, designing new approaches to predict and prevent life-threatening conditions.

In Kansas State University’s College of Human Health and Sciences, a team of researchers has been in the metaphorical film room, studying and validating a new playbook for heart health that they believe will lead to victory.

Britton Scheuermann, a doctoral candidate in kinesiology, working in associate professor Carl Ade’s Clinical Integrated Physiology Laboratory, was the lead author on a paper in JAMA Network Open, which validated the American Heart Association’s new app Predicting Risk of cardiovascular disease EVENTs, or PREVENT, equations to calculate patients’ cardiovascular disease risk.

In the medical field, the relationship between researchers and practitioners is crucial to successful results.

“I look at it in terms of we’re the coaches, and we’re drawing up plays. Each study is a play,” Scheuermann said. “We pitch that play to the players, we run it in practice to see if it works, and then we take it to the game, and hopefully, it’s a huge victory because of our playbook.”

When running the PREVENT equations in practice, Scheuermann found a winning play.

The new equations, an update to the Heart Association’s previous models, provide patients who are 30 years or older and their medical providers with more precise scores. These scores use patient factors like age, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and other metrics to calculate their 10- and 30-year risks of total cardiovascular disease, such as heart attack, stroke and heart failure.

“Our research looked at these equations to see if they accurately predict the occurrence of cardiovascular disease risk, based on actual instances in a database of nearly 200 million participants,” Scheuermann said. “We found that these equations do a great job of identifying people at high risk versus low risk, as well as getting roughly correct estimations of the timeline and occurrences of cardiovascular disease events in different risk categories.”

The previous model used by the Heart Association was a playbook that worked well for many decades. But like any strategist, physiologists always know there is room for new ideas and refinement, and this type of innovation is precisely what the new model brings to the fight against cardiovascular disease, Scheuermann said.

“I look at PREVENT as being like the option offense in football because it gives you a lot more variety,” said Scheuermann. “We have things like kidney and liver health and all these other things that are coming into play with this score. It gives the quarterback a clear picture of what he needs to read once he’s in the game.”

As Scheuermann and his research colleagues lead a drive against cardiovascular disease, the PREVENT equations are poised to be a game-changing play — one that could redefine how medical professionals and patients tackle heart health nationwide.

“Each bit of work is a little step forward,” said Scheuermann. “With our partnership with Stormont Vail, we’re starting to make changes in our local community first, incorporating this into our health care here and helping people in Manhattan and surrounding communities to better understand their cardiovascular health.

“If we can start at this level then hopefully, we can continue to collaborate with other facilities across the country,” he continued. “The hope is that this score becomes something that helps people everywhere better understand their cardiovascular health.”

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