Monash University study finds four-minute heart health test at pop-up stations can saves lives

It only takes four-minutes and may save your life, now the Shane Warne Legacy is rolling out revolutionary pop-up heart health stations at the Boxing Day test.

Victorian lives have been saved by a simple idea to put pop-up heart health checks in regional shopping centres and workplaces.

The new Monash University study found most of the 454 adults who took the four-minute test unknowingly had at least one cardiovascular risk factor.

These included high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

The researchers used the same testing stations that will be in use at the MCG for the Boxing Day Test next week as part of not-for-profit group Shane Warne Legacy.

Shane Warne’s kids Summer, Jackson, and Brooke Warne are raising awareness for the pop-up heart health checks. Picture: Picture: William West

The late spin king’s children Jackson, Summer and Brooke are encouraging fans to ‘tip their hat’ to Warnie and take the heart health tests at his beloved ‘G’.

A handful of those in the Gippsland Healthy Heart Study, led by Professor Stephen Nicholls, were found to have critically high numbers that needed immediate medical attention.

“For a small pilot study, there were a few who needed to see somebody pretty quickly,” Professor Nicholls said.

“We had one or two describe the fact they had been having a fair bit of chest pain. That’s not something to sit on.

“We are very clear with our messaging that if you are having chest pain you should seek medical attention. We know that for a quarter of people having their first heart attack, they don’t make it to hospital. That’s why prevention is key.”

Professor Nicholls is the director of the Victorian Heart Institute, a professor of cardiology at Monash University and the program director of the Victorian Heart Hospital.

He said the convenience of the ‘while you wait’ heart health checks that give instant results may help with access difficulties or screening reluctance.

The results of the pilot study, published in the Australian Journal of Rural Health, found more than 85 per cent of those who had a check had cardiovascular risk factors that were not being treated.

“Prevention starts with not only lifestyle, but also knowing your numbers and if we can give people lots of opportunities to do that, it is a good thing,” Professor Nicholls said.

“It is all about how do we take preventive screening out into the community; if we say the only way to do this is the community has to come to us, it puts up barriers.”

Professor Nicholls says Australia has a cardiovascular disease crisis and people living in remote and regional Australia bear a disproportionate burden of adverse cardiovascular outcomes compared with their city counterparts.

A four-minute heart health check may save your life. Picture: William West.

He says it is important for people to recognise the symptoms of a cardiac arrest, and also when to call triple-0 and to know CPR.

Professor Nicholls said next will be to see how to scale the study and how it can be tailored for communities, adding the “Shane Warne Legacy Heart Test” at the MCG is a great example.

“The family is going to put 23 testing stations at the ‘G to match dad’s number and they think they will do about 1000 people a day over four days, which is great, but hopefully that exposure means… they also get much greater numbers beyond that,” he said.

“It is a four-minute test that can be a lifesaver. It gets people thinking about it. That’s a legacy.”

Visit shanewarnelegacy.com to find your free heart test.