Chances of surviving a heart attack look set to be improved by testing people's saliva. A nano-bioc...
Chances of surviving a heart attack look set to be improved by testing people's saliva.
A nano-biochip the size of a credit card, with the potential to assess the risk of heart attack in as little as 15 minutes, has been developed by researchers at the University of Texas.
The test analyses saliva and can expose whether a patient is currently having a heart attack, or if they are at high risk of having one in the future. This is possible through the detection of blood serum proteins in saliva, which can act as indicators of cardiac disease.
The designer of the chip, John McDevitt, said the test will dramatically improve the accuracy and speed of cardiac diagnosis.
Coinciding with this news, it has been revealed that babies born to a mother who developed pre-eclampsia may be more likely to go on to develop heart disease in later life.
Dr Dino Giussani, lead researcher of the study at the University of Cambridge, said it has been known for a while that changes in maternal nutrition can affect foetal development and influence disease susceptibility later in life, but relatively little work has been done on how low oxygen levels in the womb may affect infant development.
Last month, it was announced that the public were becoming increasingly concerned about finding a way to improve heart disease conditions.
A poll conducted on behalf of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry uncovered a genuine join-up between public desire, government action, academic research priorities and industry investment into major illnesses.
However, just one third of people surveyed were found to be confident that enough money was being invested in researching those diseases that concern them the most.
According to the British Heart Foundation, heart and circulatory disease is the UK's biggest killer.
