What's Your Heart Health Score
August 25, 2026
Do you know your calcium score? Or rather, your heart health score? This metric is becoming popular, with health influencers, celebrities, and well-respected medical figures talking about the Calcium score test for heart health.
The cardiovascular system is vital to your body. It helps carry blood both to and from your heart. This ensures cells all over your body get access to nutrients and oxygen, which they depend on to survive and function. Because of this important role, it’s crucial that you understand your heart. Let’s explore the Calcium score test further and what risks it can help identify.
What is a CT Calcium Score?
The term CT-Calcium Score refers to a specialized test that has become quite popular in modern-day medicine. It involves a computed tomography scan that focuses on your chest. This test was designed to take a closer look at the coronary arteries, which are crucial vessels for the heart.
When you undergo a CT-Calcium Score test, the focus is to see how much calcified plaque has accumulated in these arteries. Once your test is done, you’ll be given a score, and the higher it is, the greater your potential risk of developing cardiovascular diseases is. This is because the score relates to the amount of calcified plaque in these arteries. These arteries help provide your heart with a supply of blood. When there is a significant amount of plaque in the coronary arteries, it can cause a substantial increase in the risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular complications. It’s important to discuss your score with your primary care physician to identify other potential risks, as the Calcium score test does not determine all risks
What Happens During a CT Calcium Score Test
Understanding how the Calcium score test is performed can ease the stress that some people experience when they undergo this kind of test for the first time.
A Calcium score test is a non-invasive procedure. There’s no need for a contrast dye, and the procedure takes around 10 minutes. While there is a relatively low dose of radiation involved, the benefits of the test are high. The test emits a slightly higher amount of radiation than a few X-rays, but significantly less than a full CT scan. The typical radiation dose is around 1 to 3 millisieverts (mSv). For context, natural background radiation from just living on Earth is about 3 mSv per year. For most people, the benefits outweigh the small risks, especially considering the impact of a cardiovascular event on overall health and longevity.
Although the Calcium Score test is painless and non-invasive, it is not suitable for everyone. Pregnant women and people who are unable to stay still for 10 to 15 minutes are not advised to complete the test.
Calcium Score Testing as An Indicator of Cardiovascular Risk
Calcium score tests aren’t entirely new in terms of identifying cardiovascular risks. However, there has been an increase in the use of these tests as an indicator of heart disease risk factors.
A 2024 study published in the Nature Scientific Reports Journal detailed the findings of computed tomography calcium scoring, or CTCS for predicting potential heart failure. The researchers compared Calcium score tests for patients with and without type 2 diabetes to determine risk of heart failure. The CTCS assessments provided a much more accurate view of cardiovascular risk compared to the predictions based on other clinical factors.
A research paper in the Therapeutic Advances in Cardiovascular Disease Journal also goes into more detail about how Calcium score tests could become an essential tool in both the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
This emerging research shows how the non-invasive procedure can help patients get a better idea about their own heart health. It could become a crucial factor in determining the risk of cardiac events and heart disease at an early stage. When these conditions are caught and treated early, complications can often be prevented more efficiently.
Even in cases where heart disease is already diagnosed, these tests become valuable in understanding the treatment better. If someone is put on statins or other medications to treat their cardiovascular conditions, Calcium score tests can be done periodically to determine the effectiveness of the treatment
Addressing a High Calcium Score
Research now shows that any score above zero for a CT-Calcium assessment is considered undesirable, though it is not a direct indicator of cardiovascular disease. People are looking at these tests to determine how they can live longer and healthier lives. When you get a score that falls within any risk category, it’s essential to understand what you can do about this.
It’s generally not considered possible to make the plaque in your coronary arteries disappear completely. With that said, some strategies can help manage the size of the accumulation. As Harvard Health Publishing explains, it is also possible to stabilize the plaque, which can become a significant factor when attending to your own heart health.
Some medications may help if your doctor finds you have a high calcium score. In one study, researchers focused specifically on determining the effectiveness of intravenous EDTA chelations[FI1] , which is a medical treatment that is primarily used to remove toxic metals from the body. Among the 10 patients involved in the study, there was an average reduction of 27.38% in their Calcium scores, demonstrating that chelation has the potential to reduce calcium scores. Since calcium scores correlate with cardiovascular risk, reducing the calcium score may reduce the risk of an event.
Several other medications can be used to help maintain your Calcium score so it does not increase, but this should be done with careful monitoring by your primary care physician. Statins, beta-blockers, and calcium channel blockers are potential options your doctor may explore.
In addition to these, it’s important not to rule out lifestyle changes that could have a positive impact on your Calcium score. A Mediterranean diet, for example, has been scientifically shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases by as much as 30%. Stopping smoking and increasing exercise levels are also useful strategies that can be helpful.
Conclusion
The Calcium Score test has become a popular way for people to get a better idea of their own cardiovascular health. This non-invasive test can reveal vital data related to plaque buildup in your coronary arteries. A higher score means there’s a greater risk of cardiovascular disease and cardiac events. Researchers believe that this is an accurate and cost-effective way for the early detection of heart problems and gives patients a way to take action before real issues develop.
References
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5368205/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-77269-x
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11075618/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/can-we-reduce-vascular-plaque-buildup
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10549777/
