Preventive cardiologists are looking for ways to detect early stage heart disease in people who aren’t currently in treatment – and a new blood test for protein biomarkers could be the answer.

A UT Southwestern study, published in Circulation, pooled data of nearly 13,000 patients from three major patient populations, including multiple ethnicities. The team asked whether measuring levels of two biomarkers – proteins in the blood – would identify people in need of treatment.

The researchers found that approximately one-third of adults with mild hypertension who are not currently recommended for treatment have slight elevations of one of these two biomarkers; these individuals were more likely to have heart attacks, strokes, or congestive heart failure over the next 10 years.

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