First test to determine chance of suffering a stroke developed

The first test to determine the chance of a person suffering a stroke or developing heart disease within 10 years in any country in the world has been developed by scientists.

The experts behind the breakthrough said they hope the warning will shock individuals into changing their lifestyles and diets in order to lower their risk.

The test links factors like age, high cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking and diabetes to give the prospect of future ill health as a percentage and combines it with statistics from respective nations.

For example, an Irish diabetic smoker over 80 years of age and with high cholesterol would be warned they had a 75 per cent chance of having a stroke or suffering heart disease within 10 years. In China, the risk soars to 99 per cent.

The test, called 'Globorisk', was developed by Harvard School of Public Health and is believed to be the first to take into account the superior medical care and longer lifespans of First World countries such as Ireland.

It was developed using information from eight cohort studies, which included more than 50,000 participants who were followed for 10 years.

Researchers recorded whether they smoked or developed diabetes and regularly monitored cholesterol and blood pressure. They then recorded how many had gone on to develop heart disease or suffer a stroke.