Early diagnosis is often the key to effectively treating most healthy conditions, and new research from the Respiratory Institute at Cleveland Clinic found that a simple breath test might be able to accurately diagnose heart disease. While the study is still in its earliest stages, experts are hopeful the results could be a breakthrough in cardiovascular health management, Fox News reports.
The findings were published recently in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and are based on a small sample of subjects, but the results were certainly encouraging. Researchers determined that they were able to diagnose heart disease by analyzing the presence of volatile organic compounds in a subject’s breath. The team says it has been able to diagnose the condition with almost perfect accuracy in its limited trial.
“Every individual has a breath print that differentiates them from other people, depending on what’s going on in their body,” study author Dr. Raed Dweik told HealthDay. “And that print can tell us a lot about a person, what they’ve been exposed to and what disease they have.”
Implementing such a simple test could dramatically change the way healthcare providers address heart disease, something which could have a substantial impact on many people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 600,000 people die from heart disease each year.
