Markers of Imminent Myocardial Infarction (MIMI)
Heart attacks are the leading cause of death worldwide. With our innovative study design, we have investigated whether it is possible to find signs of increased risk of a first heart attack within six months in people who are completely healthy. Our studies show that higher levels of the protein BNP in the blood are linked to having a first heart attack within six months, and that these heart attacks can be predicted by simple means.
Project description
Myocardial infarction is the leading cause of death worldwide and prevention strategies currently have low precision and limited adherence. Our hypothesis is that several different dynamic biological processes are active in the months leading up to a heart attack, and that biomarkers of these processes are identifiable in blood during that time. With our MIMI study's innovative study design, we are investigating whether it is possible to identify in the general population proteins or metabolites (metabolic products) linked to having a first heart attack within 6 months of a blood draw. We analysed 817 proteins and 1,025 metabolites in the blood of all of the over 170,000 participants in several European population studies who had a first heart attack within 6 months, and a group of randomly selected representatives of these 170,000.
We found that 48 proteins, 43 metabolites, age, sex and systolic blood pressure were linked to risk of a first heart attack. One cardiac protein, BNP, was most strongly associated with the risk of an early heart attack. Using clinically accessible variables, we were also able to develop a clinically useful risk calculator to calculate the risk of having a first heart attack within 6 months using commonly available risk factors.