Heart Age Calculator
Use this heart age calculator to compare the age of your heart and blood vessels with your real age, using the Framingham equations with cholesterol or BMI.
Updated October 22, 2026
Medical Disclaimer: This calculator gives a general estimate for education only and cannot diagnose a condition. Share your result with your doctor or the clinician who ordered your test, and do not start, stop or change any medicine based on it. Read our full Medical Disclaimer.
How Heart Age Is Calculated
Heart age is the age of a person with normal risk factors who has the same predicted chance of heart and blood vessel disease as you. If you are 50 and your heart age is 60, your numbers carry about the same 10-year risk as a 60-year-old with normal blood pressure and cholesterol who does not smoke or have diabetes¹.
What Heart Age Measures
Heart age describes risk. It is not a test of your heart and cannot show whether you have heart disease. The Framingham authors say it really reflects the age of your blood vessels, which is why it is also called vascular age¹. It only applies to people who have not had a heart attack, stroke or other heart or artery disease.
The Formula
The Framingham equations add up your risk factors, each multiplied by a published weight. Heart age is the age at which a person with normal values reaches the same total¹ ²:
S = A x ln(age) + B x ln(top blood pressure) + C x ln(total cholesterol) + D x ln(HDL cholesterol) + E if you smoke + F if you have diabetes
Heart age = e^((S - R) / A)
A to F are the weights for your sex, and B is larger if you take blood pressure medicine. R is the same sum, without the age part, for normal values: blood pressure 125 mmHg without medicine, total cholesterol 180 mg/dL, HDL 45 mg/dL, no smoking and no diabetes¹. The weights come from 8,491 Framingham participants aged 30 to 74 followed for up to 12 years¹.
How This Calculator Computes Your Result
Enter your sex, age (30 to 74), top blood pressure, and whether you take blood pressure medicine, smoke or have diabetes. Then add total and HDL cholesterol from a recent blood test, or switch to the BMI version, which uses your height and weight instead and compares you with a normal BMI of 22.5. Cholesterol in mmol/L is divided by 0.02586 to get mg/dL.
You see your heart age to the nearest year and how many years older or younger that is than your real age. Results below 30 show as "under 30" and above 80 as "over 80", the end rows of the Framingham heart age table. The equations were built on people aged 30 to 74, so results far outside that range are less exact. Below that are the two numbers your heart age is built from: your 10-year risk of any cardiovascular event, and the risk for a person your age with normal values.
What Your Result Means
Your heart age compared with your real age | What it tells you |
Younger | Lower predicted risk than a person your age with normal risk factors |
The same | Same predicted risk as a person your age with normal risk factors |
1 to 4 years older | A little higher predicted risk than normal for your age |
5 or more years older | Clearly higher predicted risk than normal for your age |
An older heart age is common. In its 2015 Vital Signs report, the CDC used the BMI version of this method and found that US adults aged 30 to 74 had an average heart age 7.8 years older than their real age for men and 5.4 years older for women³. About 69 million adults (43.7%) had a heart age at least 5 years older, the marker the CDC used for excess heart age³.
"Normal" is not ideal. With an HDL of 60 mg/dL or a blood pressure of 115 mmHg, your heart age can be younger than your real age.
What Moves Your Heart Age
Each risk factor stretches or shrinks heart age by a set proportion. Here is a 50-year-old with normal values except for one change (cholesterol version, from the published weights²):
One change from normal values | Heart age, man aged 50 | Heart age, woman aged 50 |
None | 50 | 50 |
Current smoker | 62 | 63 |
Diabetes | 60 | 67 |
Blood pressure 145, no medicine | 55 | 60 |
Blood pressure 145, on medicine | 61 | 68 |
Total cholesterol 240 mg/dL | 56 | 58 |
HDL cholesterol 35 mg/dL | 54 | 54 |
HDL cholesterol 60 mg/dL | 46 | 46 |
Smoking alone raises heart age by about a quarter, and diabetes adds more in women than in men². A treated reading counts for more than the same reading without medicine², so answer Yes to the medicine question even if your reading is now normal.
Heart Age Versus a Risk Percentage
A risk calculator gives you a percentage. Heart age turns the same estimate into an age, which the Framingham authors offered to make risk easier to understand¹. The risk behind this tool counts any cardiovascular event, including heart failure, angina, mini-strokes and artery disease in the legs, so it runs higher than heart attack and stroke risk alone².
Studies of heart age as a message are mixed. In a trial of 3,153 adults in southern Europe, people told their heart age improved their risk profile more over 12 months than people given a percentage⁴. In an online study of 570 Australians, heart age did not improve lifestyle plans more, felt less credible, and led more low-risk people to see themselves as higher risk (47% vs 23%)⁵.
Other tools can give different answers. The UK NHS calculator uses a different model, JBS3, for ages 30 to 95, so its number will not match this one⁶.
Heart Age at 50 With One Risk Factor Changed
Heart age for a 50-year-old with normal values except for the one change in each row.
- Man aged 50
- Woman aged 50
Show data table
| One change from normal values | Man aged 50 (years) | Woman aged 50 (years) |
|---|---|---|
| None (normal values) | 50 | 50 |
| Current smoker | 62 | 63 |
| Diabetes | 60 | 67 |
| Blood pressure 145, no medicine | 55 | 60 |
| Blood pressure 145, on medicine | 61 | 68 |
| Total cholesterol 240 mg/dL | 56 | 58 |
| HDL cholesterol 35 mg/dL | 54 | 54 |
| HDL cholesterol 60 mg/dL | 46 | 46 |
A Note on Accuracy
Heart age is an estimate for a group of people with your numbers, not a reading of your own heart. The Framingham equations were built in a mostly white US population, and the authors say they need checking in other groups¹. The BMI version is a little less accurate than the cholesterol version¹, and very high results are less exact because no one in the study was over 74. One unusual blood pressure reading or old lab results can also skew the number. The risk numbers come from older Framingham data, and the newer PREVENT equations used on our <a href="/heart-disease-risk-calculator">Heart Disease Risk Calculator</a> often give a much lower risk for the same person. It is not a diagnosis.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good heart age?
A heart age the same as or younger than your real age is a good result, because your predicted risk is no higher than normal for your age¹. The CDC used 5 or more years older as its marker of excess heart age³.
Why is my heart age older than my actual age?
Usually one or more of your numbers is worse than the normal values, such as a blood pressure over 125, an HDL below 45, smoking or diabetes¹. Smoking alone adds about 12 to 13 years at age 50².
How accurate is a heart age calculator?
In the original study, given one person who had a cardiovascular event and one who did not, the equations gave the higher risk to the right person about 76% to 79% of the time¹. It is a group estimate, so it can be off for one person.
Can you lower your heart age?
Heart age is recalculated from your current numbers, so it moves when your blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, smoking or diabetes status changes, and it rises with age¹. A doctor can help you see which numbers matter most for you.
Sources
General Cardiovascular Risk Profile for Use in Primary Care, D'Agostino et al., 2008
Cardiovascular Disease (10-Year Risk), Framingham Heart Study
Vital Signs: Predicted Heart Age Among U.S. Adults, Yang et al., 2015
Effectiveness of the Heart Age Tool, Lopez-Gonzalez et al., 2015
Is the Heart Age Concept Helpful or Harmful?, Bonner et al., 2015
Heart Age Calculator, NHS