What's Your Problem? The New Science of Preventing Heart Attacks
18 snips
Jan 29, 2026 
Eric Topol, a cardiologist and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, discusses a shift from artery blockages to inflammation as the key to heart attacks. He covers CT scans plus AI that flag inflamed arteries, polygenic risk scores, multimodal AI that predicts timing of disease, aggressive LDL lowering, and new anti-inflammatory and microbiome approaches.
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Polygenic Scores: Cheap, Powerful, And Limited
- Polygenic risk scores now use hundreds of variants to stratify lifetime heart-attack risk cheaply.
- Topol warns they predict risk but not timing, so they’re a complement to other markers.
AI Predicts Timing, Not Just Risk
- Multimodal AI can predict not just who gets disease but when, using EHRs, genetics, and more.
- Topol cites Nature papers that predicted disease timing across large cohorts successfully.
Combine Drugs With Biomarker Tracking
- Use existing drugs and markers: statins, PCSK9 and Lp(a) measures, plus blood inflammation tests.
- Monitor markers to see if interventions lower arterial aging and inflammation.
