How old is your heart — not on your driver's license, but on the inside? This free calculator runs the AHA PREVENT equations (Khan et al., Circulation 2024), the cardiovascular risk model the 2026 ACC/AHA prevention guidelines now recommend in place of the older Framingham and Pooled Cohort Equations. Enter your blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI, kidney function, smoking and diabetes status, and you'll see a single number back: the age of a person with optimal risk factors whose heart carries the same risk as yours.
Unlike older calculators, PREVENT gives you both a 10-year and a 30-year risk — and for men in their 40s and 50s the 30-year number is often the wake-up call, because a "low" 10-year risk can hide a steep long-term trajectory. A 50-year-old smoker with borderline BP and low HDL can show a heart age in the high 60s. A well-managed 55-year-old on a statin with normal BP can land in the 40s. The gap between your calendar age and your heart age is what matters — a 10+ year gap means your arteries are aging faster than the rest of you, and the Smart Analysis tells you which single fix closes the most of it. Pull your latest labs and enter them as-is; if you don't have a recent eGFR, leave it at the default and the calculator still works.
The toggle at the top of the calculator switches the entire engine, so set it before you read your result. AHA PREVENT is the default and the right choice for almost everyone: it's the 2024 model the 2026 ACC/AHA prevention guidelines now recommend, it adds BMI and kidney function as inputs, and it returns both a 10-year and a 30-year risk. Framingham 2008 is the older model, included only so you can compare — it ignores BMI and eGFR, gives no 30-year number, and tends to overestimate risk in contemporary populations. If the two models disagree, trust PREVENT. The heart-age number, the risk categories, and the Smart Analysis all recalculate instantly when you flip the toggle, so you can see exactly how much the model choice moves your result.
These two fields only appear in PREVENT mode, and they're the ones users most often leave wrong. BMI feeds the heart-failure portion of total CVD risk — PREVENT is the first mainstream model to include it — so enter your real number (weight in kg ÷ height in metres squared, or use any online BMI tool). eGFR is your kidney filtration rate, and it's a genuine PREVENT predictor: a value under 60 sharply raises modeled risk. It's printed on any standard basic metabolic panel or comprehensive metabolic panel from routine bloodwork, usually labeled "eGFR" or "GFR estimate." If you genuinely don't have it, leave the default of 90 (a normal value) — the calculator still runs, it just won't capture kidney-driven risk. Don't guess a low number to be "safe"; that will distort the result. If your eGFR is actually below 60, that's worth a real conversation with your doctor about kidney-protective medication, not just a calculator input.
PREVENT doesn't ask for LDL. It derives non-HDL cholesterol internally as total cholesterol minus HDL, so the two numbers you enter — TC and HDL — are all it needs. Enter both in US units (mg/dL) straight off your lipid panel. Non-HDL captures every atherogenic particle, not just LDL, which is why modern guidelines increasingly target it. The practical takeaway: lowering total cholesterol and raising HDL both reduce your non-HDL and therefore your score, and the Smart Analysis will tell you your current non-HDL figure and whether it's in the borderline or high zone. Fasting versus non-fasting barely matters for TC and HDL, so use whatever recent panel you have rather than waiting for a fasting draw.
This is the single most important addition PREVENT brings, and the reason the calculator surfaces it prominently. A man in his 40s or 50s can have a reassuring 10-year ASCVD risk — under 5% — while his 30-year risk sits at 15, 20, or 30%. That long-term number is the honest one at your age, because cardiovascular disease is cumulative and the 10-year window is too short to show the trajectory. The 2026 guideline explicitly lets a 30-year ASCVD risk of ≥10% justify starting a moderate-intensity statin even when the 10-year number looks fine. When you expand the Smart Analysis, the "30-Year Picture" callout interprets your specific number: whether it's a low-10/high-30 mismatch that changes the treatment conversation, or a uniformly elevated profile that calls for action now. Don't let a low 10-year figure talk you out of prevention.
Both medication toggles behave the same way and surprise people for the same reason: in PREVENT, being treated raises your modeled risk slightly at the same numbers. A 130 mmHg on blood-pressure medication implies your untreated pressure was higher and your vessels have already taken that load; a normal cholesterol on a statin implies your untreated level was elevated. So flipping either toggle on nudges the risk up, not down — that's the validated formula reflecting your underlying baseline, not a bug. Set them honestly: if you take BP meds, select Yes even if your current reading is normal, and likewise for statins. Selecting No to flatter your number will underestimate your real risk. The statin toggle only appears in PREVENT mode because Framingham 2008 doesn't model statin treatment separately.
The headline number is your heart age: the age of a person with optimal risk factors (non-HDL 135, HDL 58, SBP 120, normal kidney function, no diabetes, no smoking, no medications) whose 10-year total CVD risk matches yours. The gap — heart age minus actual age — is the clearest single metric: 0 means your heart is as young as your body, 5 is common and manageable, 10+ means your arteries are aging faster than you are. Separately, the calculator shows your 10-year ASCVD risk as a percentage and assigns a category using the 2026 ACC/AHA bands: low under 3%, borderline 3–5%, intermediate 5–10%, high 10% or above. Those are the exact thresholds your doctor uses — intermediate generally supports a moderate-intensity statin, high supports a high-intensity statin, and borderline triggers a risk-benefit discussion where a coronary calcium (CAC) scan can break the tie. A separate threshold, 10-year total CVD risk of 7.5%, is what the 2025 hypertension guideline uses to decide on blood-pressure medication.
Expand the "What If" panel to see your heart age if every modifiable factor were optimized to clinically achievable targets (BP 120, TC 180, HDL 60, non-smoker). The gap between your current heart age and the what-if heart age is the total ground you could recover with lifestyle and medication combined. The factor chart below ranks which single change lowers your 10-year total CVD risk the most — and the answer is often not what you'd guess. For many middle-aged men, getting blood pressure from 150 down to 120 moves the number more than any cholesterol change, because PREVENT weights systolic pressure heavily above 110 mmHg. For smokers, quitting dwarfs everything else. Use the chart to pick your first move, then take that one item to your doctor.
PREVENT is validated for adults aged 30–79 without existing cardiovascular disease. If you've had a heart attack, stroke, stent, bypass, or are already on a statin for established CVD, you're in secondary prevention — handled differently, and this calculator doesn't apply. PREVENT excludes extreme input values (TC outside 130–320, HDL outside 20–100, SBP outside 90–200, BMI outside 18.5–39.9) because the model wasn't fit on them; the calculator will warn you when you're outside range. The equations were derived on a large, contemporary, multi-ethnic US sample and deliberately exclude race as a predictor. Treat the output as a well-calibrated estimate to guide a conversation, not a precise probability or a prescription. For decisions about statins, blood-pressure medication, or aspirin, bring these numbers and your full lab panel to your primary care doctor or a preventive cardiologist. This is not a diagnosis and not a substitute for professional medical evaluation.