Blood Pressure Awareness Week
Blood Pressure Awareness Week
4th – 10th September is this years Blood Pressure Awareness week, also known as ‘Know your numbers week.’
It is estimated that 16 million people in the UK have high blood pressure, but around a third are unware that they have it – if left untreated, it can often cause heart attacks or stroke and is also a risk factor for heart disease, kidney disease and vascular dementia.
People with High Blood often show no symptoms but awareness of it can make it easily treatable and manageable.
Your blood pressure is an essential part of the successful circulation of blood around your body. When your heart contracts, it propels blood outward with force, circulating it around all the arteries in your body.
When healthy and relaxed, your arteries are flexible and provide just the right amount of resistance to enable efficient blood flow.
But what does that mean exactly?
High blood pressure is the result of the stiffening and constriction of your arteries. These narrower, more rigid arteries cause higher resistance to blood flow, ultimately causing the heart to work harder to pump the blood to the farthest parts of you.
Over time, this additional work can cause damage to the myocardium, or heart muscle, as well as other organs like the brain and kidneys. Know Your Numbers Week, organized by Blood Pressure UK, is an annual event in September that aims to increase awareness of the dangers of high blood pressure, promote the importance of knowing your blood pressure and provide you with information on how you can help lower yours.
Home testing kits have made it easy and convenient for people to test for health concerns from the comfort of their own homes – this allows them to begin taking steps to target at-risk areas. Home monitoring is both an effective and inexpensive way to keep blood pressure under control.
With Randox Health’s easy-to-use Heart Health home testing kit you can find out your cholesterol levels from the comfort of your home. This health test is available from £29 and measures total cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol. LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides.
Our easy-to-interpret Heart Health report will provide a breakdown of your results.
Available at www.randoxhealth.com
World Heart Day 2022
World Heart Day 2022
World Heart Day – Raising awareness of Cardiovascular Diseases
On 29th September, World Heart Day is an opportunity for everyone to stop and consider how best to use heart for humanity, for nature, and for yourself. Beating cardiovascular disease is something that matters to every beating heart.
In May 2012, world leaders committed to reducing global mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by 25% by 2025. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is accountable for nearly half of all NCD deaths making it the world’s number one killer. World Heart Day is, therefore, the perfect platform for the CVD community to unite in the fight against CVD and reduce the global disease burden.
World Heart Day is a global campaign created by the World Heart Federation in which it informs people around the globe that CVD, including heart disease and stroke, is the world’s leading cause of death claiming 18.6 million lives each year. It aims to highlight the actions that individuals can take to prevent and control CVD as well as to drive action to educate people by controlling risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity.
What are cardiovascular diseases?
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a group of disorders relating to the heart and blood vessels and they include:
- coronary heart disease – disease of the blood vessels supplying the heart muscle
- cerebrovascular disease – disease of the blood vessels supplying the brain
- peripheral arterial disease – disease of blood vessels supplying the arms and legs
- rheumatic heart disease – damage to the heart muscle and heart valves from rheumatic fever, caused by streptococcal bacteria
- congenital heart disease – malformations of heart structure existing at birth
- deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism – blood clots in the leg veins, which can dislodge and move to the heart and lungs
How can Randox help with these current global challenges
Cardiovascular disease, including heart disease, is easier to treat when detected early. Here at Randox, we utilise innovative diagnostic tests for early risk assessment capable of diagnosing disease at the earliest possible stages, because we understand that “prevention is better than cure”.
Randox Laboratories is a world leader in innovative diagnostics with 40 years’ experience and a leading provider of diagnostic reagents for the assessment of cardiovascular disease risk. Randox offer an extensive menu of cardiac biomarkers within the cardiology reagents panel including:
Risk Assessment
- CK-MB – useful in patients with chest pain; Creatine Kinase is an enzyme produced in many different types of cells, of which high levels indicate muscle trauma or damage.
- Myoglobin – a small protein which leaks out of muscle cells after injury, is also considered a biomarker for the detection of Myocardinal Infraction.
- Routine lipid tests to determine the patient’s cholesterol and triglyceride levels – HDL Cholesterol, LDL Cholesterol, Total Cholesterol and Triglycerides
- Independent risk assessment tests such as sdLDL Cholesterol and Lipoprotein(a) to determine any genetic factors which may increase their risk of CVD. Please note, this is necessary even for patients who have good cholesterol levels
- Secondary tests, such as High Sensitivity CRP, in addition to risk assessment markers and lipid evaluation – secondary tests are important in predicting future cardiac events of individuals with no previous history of CVD and those deemed healthy because of primary tests; approximately half of all heart attacks occur in patients classified as low risk. In addition, they can also be used to evaluate the risk of a recurrent cardiac event
- Homocysteine – elevated levels of homocysteine have been linked to various disease states including CVD. Extremely high levels are found in patients with homocystinuria, of which many suffer from early arteriosclerosis.
More information
If you are a clinician or lab interested in our Cardiology & Lipids Panel, we have a wealth of resources available:
Download our Reagents Brochure
Download our Cardiology & Lipid Testing Brochure
If you would like to get in touch with a Sales representative please email us reagents@randox.com
Cardiac QC
Acusera Cardiac Controls is designed to deliver an assayed solution for Tropinin I and NT-proBNP testing. Its intended use with Roche, Abbott and Siemens. This control is manufactured using only the highest quality material and offers a 7-day thawed stability at +2ºC to +8ºC.
Four levels are available covering the clinically relevant range, including High Sensitivity Troponin I.
Features and Benefits
- Liquid for ease-of-use stability
- Aqueous material
- 4 Clinically relevant levels (including Ultra-Low)
- Stable to expiry date at -18-24ºC storage
- Thawed stability of 7 days at 2°C – 8°C
For more information, visit our Cardiac Quality Control website
If you have any other queries, don’t hesitate on contacting us at qualitycontrol@randox.com
Heart Health Test
High Cholesterol is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke therefore at Randox Health we have the Heart Health Test to keep our cholesterol at a healthy level. This is done from the convenience of your home with our home sample collection kit. Heart Health measures your total cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol, LDL (bad cholesterol) and triglycerides.
Why we get tested?
There is so much importance in identifying cholesterol imbalance early which allows you to make appropriate dietary and lifestyle changes which in turn reduces your risk of heart disease and stroke. It is essential to acknowledge that regardless of your age and physical health, anyone can have high cholesterol; high levels may be a result of genetics or lifestyle which can often display with no underlying symptoms. Those with a family history of heart disease, who are overweight/ obese, drink alcohol, smoke regularly, lead a sedentary lifestyle or have diabetes are at an increased risk and should get tested.
Find out more here
Want to know more about Randox?
Contact us or visit our homepage to view more.
World Heart Day 2021
World Heart Day 2021
World Heart Day – Raising awareness of Cardiovascular Diseases
World Heart Day was established by the World Heart Federation in collaboration with the World Health Organization to raise awareness of cardiovascular diseases.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the world’s number one killer, causing over 18.6 million deaths per year, according to the World Heart Federation. 85% of these deaths are due to coronary heart diseases (e.g. heart attacks) and cerebrovascular diseases (e.g. strokes) and mostly affect low-and middle-income countries.
What are cardiovascular diseases?
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a group of disorders relating to the heart and blood vessels and they include:
- coronary heart disease – disease of the blood vessels supplying the heart muscle
- cerebrovascular disease – disease of the blood vessels supplying the brain
- peripheral arterial disease – disease of blood vessels supplying the arms and legs
- rheumatic heart disease – damage to the heart muscle and heart valves from rheumatic fever, caused by streptococcal bacteria
- congenital heart disease – malformations of heart structure existing at birth
- deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism – blood clots in the leg veins, which can dislodge and move to the heart and lungs
How can Randox help with these current global challenges
Cardiovascular disease, including heart disease, is easier to treat when detected early. Here at Randox, we utilise innovative diagnostic tests for early risk assessment capable of diagnosing disease at the earliest possible stages, because we understand that “prevention is better than cure”.
Randox Laboratories is a world leader in innovative diagnostics with 40 years’ experience and a leading provider of diagnostic reagents for the assessment of cardiovascular disease risk. Randox offer an extensive menu of cardiac biomarkers within the cardiology reagents panel including:
Risk Assessment
- CK-MB – useful in patients with chest pain; Creatine Kinase is an enzyme produced in many different types of cells, of which high levels indicate muscle trauma or damage.
- Myoglobin – a small protein which leaks out of muscle cells after injury, is also considered a biomarker for the detection of Myocardinal Infraction.
- Routine lipid tests to determine the patient’s cholesterol and triglyceride levels – HDL Cholesterol, LDL Cholesterol, Total Cholesterol and Triglycerides
- Independent risk assessment tests such as sdLDL Cholesterol and Lipoprotein(a) to determine any genetic factors which may increase their risk of CVD. Please note, this is necessary even for patients who have good cholesterol levels
- Secondary tests, such as High Sensitivity CRP, in addition to risk assessment markers and lipid evaluation – secondary tests are important in predicting future cardiac events of individuals with no previous history of CVD and those deemed healthy because of primary tests; approximately half of all heart attacks occur in patients classified as low risk. In addition, they can also be used to evaluate the risk of a recurrent cardiac event
- Homocysteine – elevated levels of homocysteine have been linked to various disease states including CVD. Extremely high levels are found in patients with homocystinuria, of which many suffer from early arteriosclerosis.
More information
If you are a clinician or lab interested in our Cardiology & Lipids Panel, we have a wealth of resources available:
Download our Reagents Brochure
Download our Cardiology & Lipid Testing Brochure
If you would like to get in touch with a Sales representative please email us reagents@randox.com
Want to know more about Randox?
Contact us or visit our homepage to view more.
World Heart Day 2020: Take control of your heart health
29 September 2020
World Heart Day 2020
Take control of your heart health this World Heart Day
The term ‘cardiovascular disease’ (CVD) refers to any disease of the heart, vascular disease of the brain, or disease of the blood vessel. More people die from CVDs worldwide than from any other cause: over 17.9 million every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Of these deaths, 80% are due to coronary heart diseases (eg heart attack) and cerebrovascular diseases (e.g. strokes) and mostly affect low- and middle-income countries.
To try and raise awareness of the dangers of CVD and associated conditions, the World Heart Foundation celebrate World Heart Day on September 29th every year to inform and educate on the prevalence of heart disease.
Our latest blog looks at CVD and provides more information on types of disease and symptoms, so you can know what to look out for and how to reduce the impact of potential future heart problems.
The UK Situation
There are around 7.4 million people living with heart and circulatory diseases in the UK. Heart and circulatory diseases cause more than a quarter (27 per cent) of all deaths in the UK; that’s nearly 170,000 deaths each year – an average of 460 people each day or one death every three minutes.
Healthcare costs relating to heart and circulatory diseases are estimated at £9 billion each year.
| Nation | No. of people dying from CVD | No. of people under 75 dying from CVD | Estimated number of people living with CVD |
| England | 136,317 | 35,581 | 6.15 million |
| Scotland | 17,002 | 4,675 | 720,000 |
| Wales | 9,376 | 2,607 | 340,000 |
| Northern Ireland | 3,938 | 1,085 | 225,000 |
| United Kingdom | 167,116 | 44,261 | 7.4 million |
What are cardiovascular diseases?
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels and they include:
- coronary heart disease – disease of the blood vessels supplying the heart muscle;
- cerebrovascular disease – disease of the blood vessels supplying the brain;
- peripheral arterial disease – disease of blood vessels supplying the arms and legs;
- rheumatic heart disease – damage to the heart muscle and heart valves from rheumatic fever, caused by streptococcal bacteria;
- congenital heart disease – malformations of heart structure existing at birth;
- deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism – blood clots in the leg veins, which can dislodge and move to the heart and lungs.
What are the symptoms of cardiovascular disease?
Symptoms of heart disease vary based on what condition you have but can include:
- chest pain
- pain, weakness or numb legs and/or arms
- breathlessness
- very fast or slow heartbeat, or palpitations
- feeling dizzy, lightheaded or faint
- fatigue
- swollen limbs
How is cardiovascular disease diagnosed?
Diagnosis of coronary heart disease depends on your symptoms and what condition your doctor thinks you may have. Tests may be based on your family history and can include:
- blood tests
- chest x-ray
- electrocardiogram (ECG)
- echocardiogram
- CT scan
- MRI scan.
How Randox Health can help
Did you know that your heart is the size of your fist and the strongest muscle in your body? If you live to be 70, it will have beaten two and a half billion times.
Although impressive and strong, your heart can also become vulnerable from habitual risk factors like smoking, eating an unhealthy diet or putting it under stress.
Controlling these key risk factors and monitoring your blood pressure regularly may reduce an individual’s risk of CVD.
At Randox Health, we provide a range of specialised tests that enable you to take full control of your health.
Heart Health is one of our specialised tests and includes the Signature Heart Health panel of tests plus a resting ECG to give an in-depth assessment of risk of future heart disease.
For World Heart Day 2020, you can gain a detailed understanding of your Heart Health with our range of testing. Contact us today using the below details.
Click here to find out more about our testing.
Click here to book a test with Randox Health.
Email: info@randoxhealth.com
Phone: 0800 2545 130
Want to know more?
Contact us or visit our Randox Health page to view more.
Our Randox Health programmes
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Randox Health: Looking After Your Heart
This February, Randox Health are focusing on Heart Health. Heart health is becoming a much greater talked about subject because of health trends and figures. There are around 7 million people living with heart and circulatory disease in the UK. Heart and circulatory disease causes more than a quarter (26%) of all deaths in the UK; that’s nearly 160,000 deaths each year – an average of 435 people each day or one death every three minutes. Facts like these from BHF show us how how important our hearts are! Maintaining and having a healthy heart is essential to cut down your risk of heart disease.
Ways to Improve your Health
There are a number of things you can do to lower your risk of getting heart disease, and at the same time improve overall health. Lets look at three ways to lower your risk and help you become healthier:
- Managing a healthy weight
- Eating healthier
- Getting active
What You Can Do
All three of the above will lower your risk of heart disease and all are linked so by improving one it will help the others. To manage a healthy weight, first you need to work out what a healthy weight is for you. There are two main ways to tell whether you need to lose weight: your Body Mass Index (BMI), and your waist measurement. the risk of heart disease begins to increase at a BMI of 23, and people with a BMI of 27.5 will be at high risk.
Men with a waist of over 94 cm are at an increased risk of heart diseases and over 102 cm are at a severe risk. Women with a waist over 80 cm are at an increased risk and at 88 cm are at a severe risk. If you fall in these risk areas, eating well and being more physically active can help you reduce your weight.
Healthy Eating
A healthy diet can help reduce your risk of developing coronary heart disease and stop you gaining weight. This also reduces your risk of diabetes and high blood pressure. A well-balanced diet should include at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day. Try to vary the types of fruit and veg you eat.
You should try to replace saturated fats with small amounts of mono and polyunsaturated fats. Try and cut down on foods that contain trans fats as it can raise your cholesterol levels. Lowering your salt intake can improve your blood pressure and lower your chance of coronary heart disease. Eating a healthy well-balanced diet can make it a lot easier to control and maintain your weight.
Get Active! The BHF say that physical activity can help reduce your risk of heart and circulatory disease. It also links in and helps you control your weight! Being active reduces blood pressure and cholesterol and can even improve your mental health. If you do all three of these points not only will it lower your risks of heart disease but will improve your overall health!
Randox Health: What We Do and How We Can Help
This month we are focusing on heart heart, so make sure to check out our blogs with information about how to keep a healthy heart. If you’re worried about your heart health or have a family history of heart disease, contact a member of our team today for more information on how we could help you! We are determined to help you get to the heart of the matter and see what’s really going on with your heart. This Valentines day give a gift to the one you love that really matters, the gift of health.
Find out more here: https://www.randoxhealth.com/our-packages/
National Cholesterol Month: Protect your family from early heart disease
Have you heard of familial hypercholesterolemia (FH)?
A common disorder that is passed from parents to their children, FH is often called the ‘silent killer’ as it is characterised by dangerously high levels of cholesterol, leading to early onset cardiovascular disease.
The good news is that if diagnosed, FH can be effectively treated. The even better news this National Cholesterol Month is that a rapid and accurate diagnostic test for FH, developed by Randox Laboratories, has made diagnosis across the UK much simpler.
The prevalence of FH
Thousands of families in the UK are affected by FH, as not only is heart disease the number one killer across the globe, there is a 50:50 chance that a parent with FH will pass it onto their children. The condition can lead to higher risk of a heart attack in men before the age of 50, or before the age of 60 in women.
A common disease, at least 1 in every 500 people in the UK are living with FH, although new international research suggests that 1 in every 200 people could be affected, which would mean as many as 300,000 people in the UK. Worryingly, it is substantially underdiagnosed and less than 12% of people with FH in the UK are aware that they have this potentially life-threatening condition.
Testing for FH
The current recommended screening techniques for Familial Hypercholesterolemia are costly and time consuming, limiting the number of individuals who benefit from a timely diagnosis. Under NHS guidelines, when a person is found to have FH, their closest blood relatives should get tested too – including children before the age of 10.
The Randox FH test, developed in partnership with the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, enables detection of the 40 most common genetic mutations that cause FH in the UK, with results available in just three hours, and a definitive diagnosis within one day.
With early and appropriate treatment, such as adopting a healthy lifestyle and taking cholesterol-lowering medication, risk of heart disease can be significantly reduced so that someone with FH can live as long as a person who doesn’t have the condition.
Professor John Chapman, Past- President of the European Atherosclerosis Society, which promotes study into the causes of accelerated atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, has welcomed the Randox test for suspected cases of FH:
“FH is a serious condition for those with a family history of accelerated atherosclerosis and premature cardiovascular disease. With this information, preventative measures including diet, lifestyle and lipid lowering drugs can be successfully introduced. Indeed, early identification and prevention can significantly benefit all family members potentially with this condition. In fact, we are entering an exciting time in the treatment of those with cardiovascular disease as new and highly effective drugs for lipid management are becoming available.”
The test, which is available through Randox Health Clinics, has been adopted by medical professionals within the NHS, including Dr. Colin Graham, recently retired Consultant Clinical Scientist and former Head of the Regional Genetics Lab in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, who introduced the test within his Belfast Laboratory screen for suspected cases of FH:
“The launch of this new clinically available test is a key milestone in the detection and diagnosis of FH. Current FH diagnostic tests require a large volume of samples to be batched, leading to lengthy turnaround times of two to three months. With the new test, the turnaround time is dramatically reduced, enabling more rapid patient diagnosis.”
Dr. Graham also highlighted the importance of improving detection rates through the screening of wider patient populations:
“This new test has the potential to enable FH screening to become routine in the clinical setting for improved detection and earlier identification of familial cases.”
Dr. Peter FitzGerald, Managing Director of Randox Laboratories said:
“In the battle against cardiovascular disease, people with FH are on the front line. On World Heart Day it is important to raise awareness of FH as many people do not even know that they and their family members have this life-threatening condition. There is so much that can be done to support families with FH and with this readily available and much-needed test, detecting and treating entire families with FH is now possible.”
For more information please contact the Randox PR team by email: randoxpr@randox.com, or by phoning 028 9442 2413
Understanding your heart health with Randox Health
Today in the UK, on average, 530 people will be admitted to hospital with a heart attack – even though 75% of heart disease is preventable.
Why wait?
At Randox Health, we believe in preventing disease, instead of waiting for it to occur. We do this through our comprehensive health checks, which use innovative Randox technology to provide you with up to 350 test results, covering over 25 different areas within the body. One of those areas is the heart, by using our ‘Heart Health test panel’. This panel offers up to 21 tests, including a cardiovascular risk score, which assesses your risk of developing cardiovascular disease over the next 10 years.
Our Heart Health panel also measures apolipoproteins, which are proteins which bind cholesterol for transport around the body. Measuring apolipoproteins along with traditional cholesterol markers, such as LDL (bad) cholesterol and HDL (good) cholesterol, gives us a much more detailed understanding of your Heart Health, compared to using traditional cholesterol levels alone. A unique test in our panel can identify damage to heart muscle, which can occur with a heart attack.
It’s in the genes
As well as our comprehensive Heart Health panel, offered within our programmes, Randox Health also offer more specialised cardiac testing.
Taking cardiac risk assessment one step further, our Cardiac Risk Prediction testing can predict your risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) using not only traditional cholesterol and blood pressure measurements, but using advanced genetic testing. Such testing will combine various genetic tests known to be associated with increased risk of CHD, along with measurements such as blood pressure and cholesterol to calculate and provide you with an overall CHD risk score.
If you have high cholesterol, or heart disease runs in your family, you may benefit from our Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH) genetic screen. FH is a hereditary condition involving high cholesterol levels and a high risk of having a heart attack or stroke at a younger age. FH occurs in approximately 1 in every 250 people worldwide and it is thought that 90% of individuals with the condition remain undiagnosed! At Randox Health we recognise the importance of detecting this condition as early as possible; therefore, we offer testing which can check simultaneously for several genetic mutations known to be involved in FH. Early diagnosis and treatment of FH significantly improves and lengthens the lives of those affected, as well as saving the lives of their beloved family members.
To find out more, click here or call 0800 2545 130 and one of our team will be able to discuss this in more detail with you.
Take control of your heart health with Randox
Your heart is amazing. Not only is it your most critical organ but also one of the most hard-working. The average adult heart beats around 100,000 times a day, acting as a giant pump for all the blood in your body. Indeed, every day your heart pumps over nine litres of blood through a system of blood vessels over 60,000 miles long – it’s little wonder, then, the importance placed on looking after such a vital muscle.
The heart works 24/7, only taking a rest when you sleep with the natural drop of heart rate and blood pressure. Over time, and influenced by lifestyle choices, the heart grows weaker, needing to work harder to fulfil its function. Crucial lifestyle changes now could limit your risk of developing serious cardiac conditions, such as Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) in the future. Factors which can contribute to your CVD risk include genes inherited from parents or grandparents, smoking, an unhealthy diet, excessive alcohol consumption and low physical activity levels.
You can’t change your DNA, but you can find out what it means to you and your family. One of our advanced tests can identify people living with a common but often hidden disorder – Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH). Fewer than 12% of people in the UK know they have this potentially fatal condition. It is characterised by dangerously high levels of cholesterol which can lead to early onset cardiovascular disease.
While lifestyle changes may help to limit your risk of CVD, and related heart condition, it is impossible to eradicate it completely for everyone. Accounting for 31% of deaths worldwide, CVD is the number one cause of death globally but early screening could lower this figure significantly. That’s why it’s vitally important to detect CVD early before a coronary event like a heart attack occurs.
Today in the UK, 530 people will go to the hospital with a suspected heart attack. Only a fifth of these people will actually be having a heart attack. According to a team from King’s College London, as reported by the BBC, a faster, more accurate diagnosis of whether chest pain is caused by a heart attack would save the health service millions of pounds each year by sending well patients home and freeing up beds. Yet current testing methods do not efficiently differentiate between high-risk patients and the estimated 80% of patients who are not having a heart attack.
Randox’s revolutionary test for Heart-Type Fatty Acid-Binding Protein (H-FABP), when combined with current testing, is able to rule out a heart attack for patients who present at A&E with chest pain which is caused by other conditions such as respiratory issues, meaning they may not need emergency admission.
When measured at the time a patient presents to A&E with chest pain, H-FABP enables doctors to triage patients suffering with a heart attack more efficiently than before, making sure those at high-risk are given medical intervention earlier.
Early screening in the form of a comprehensive health check is essential to detect cardiac irregularities before they become serious problems. Heart damage builds up over time, meaning that when detected early enough, lifestyle changes can help to reduce cardiac risk and potentially even prevent a cardiac event occurring.
Therefore, it is vitally important that individuals are tested for CVD to detect them in the earliest stages to reduce damage, prevent further damage, or even death. Furthermore, many people suffer from inherited cardiac risk factors, which stresses the need for accurate testing.
Randox offer the complete laboratory solution to cardiac risk assessment information to doctors and hospitals, and also directly to the public at Randox Health. Our range of both traditional and novel cardiac risk biomarkers, along with our technologically-advanced range of analysers, serves to allow us to offer the most advanced, most accurate health check available on the planet.
As well as your cardiovascular risk score, a Randox Health check will also assess your cholesterol levels, FH risk, triglycerides, creative kinase, myoglobin, troponin levels and many more heart health indicators. In total, a Randox Health check can assess up to 350 different markers of irregularity or disease in the whole body, from heart to hormone health and skin to stomach.
Many serious future health issues are preventable now with action. Find out more about our health check programmes here.
About Randox Health
Randox Health is a global leader in healthcare diagnostics; today more than 5% of the world’s population – in excess of 370 million people across 145 countries – receives medical diagnosis using Randox products each year.
After investing over £220 million in the invention and production of revolutionary blood-science technology, a single Randox Health check will deliver a complete picture of your health – as it is now and, crucially, how it is likely to develop in the future.
Randox Health has proven that signs of disease or irregularity can be caught at their earliest stage. This means that, with early action, some cases of illness can even be prevented altogether. Our health checks include, but are not limited to, cancer surveillance, fertility monitoring, heart health, nutrition, digestive and diabetes health.
In other words, from one health check, you’ll receive up to 350 results and afterwards avail of expert advice from the Randox scientists or a Randox Health GP. Not only that, but a complete 12-month programme and repeat testing come as standard so you can have full confidence that you are really taking care of yourself.
Find out more information about Randox Health checks here: https://www.randoxhealth.com/our-packages/
RX Series
Randox has developed the RX series range of clinical chemistry analysers for high-quality semi-automated and fully automated testing. Choose between the RX misano, RX monaco, RX daytona+, RX imola, and the RX modena depending on the throughput of your laboratory. The RX series offers a suitable analyser for your laboratory’s needs. For more information on the Randox RX series, please click here or email therxseries@randox.com
Reagents
Randox offers an extensive range of third party diagnostic reagents which are internationally recognised as being of the highest quality; producing accurate and precise results. We have the largest test menu of 118 assays, covering over 100 disease markers including specific proteins, lipids, therapeutic drug monitoring, drugs of abuse, antioxidants, coagulation, diabetes and veterinary testing. A wide range of formats and methods are available providing greater flexibility and choice for any laboratory size. In addition to flexible pack sizes and a comprehensive list of analyser applications, we can also provide dedicated reagent packs (Randox Easy Read and Easy Fit regents) for a wide range of chemistry analysers providing you with freedom of choice from an independent manufacturer.
For more information on Randox Reagents, please click here or email reagents@randox.com
Acusera – Internal Quality Control
The Acusera cardiac controls have been designed to cover a wide range of cardiac markers at clinical decision levels, eliminating the extra expense of an additional low level control. The controls are available in a both liquid ready-to-use and lyophilized formats making them ideal for all situations and manufactured from 100% human serum a matrix similar to that of the patient is guaranteed. For more information on the Randox Acusera internal quality control, please click here or email acusera@randox.com
RIQAS – External Quality Control
The RIQAS Liquid Cardiac EQA programme is designed to monitor the performance of up to 9clinically significant cardiac markers including: CK-MB mass, D-dimer, Digoxin, homocysteine, hsCRP, myoglobin, NT proBNP, troponin I, and troponin T. RIQAS is ISO/IEC 17043 accredited and allows the registration of up to five instruments at no extra cost. All samples are 100% human serum and provided in a liquid ready-to-use format for enhanced convenience. Submit your results bi-weekly and view reports online via RIQAS.Net. For more information on RIQAS, the world’s largest international EQA scheme, please click here or email acusera@randox.com
For further information, please contact the Randox PR team via email: randoxpr@randox.com or phone 028 9442 2413
Celebrating Valentine’s Day with the Cardiac Prediction Array from Randox Biosciences
With Valentine’s Day being in the heart of National Heart Month, Randox Biosciences want to take this opportunity to talk about the importance of looking after your heart and the awareness of the tests out there currently on offer.
The British Health Foundation launched National Heart Month with the aim to spread awareness of heart disease and to encourage the nation to make small changes towards a healthier lifestyle.
Currently Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death in the UK, with 73,000 people dying from Coronary Heart Disease every year in the UK.1
Coronary Heart Disease is a disease in which plaque builds up inside the coronary arteries. Our arteries supply oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscles, however, over time plaque builds up and can harden. This hardened plaque, then narrows the coronary arteries reducing the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the heart, which can lead to angina or a heart attack to occur.2
CHD is more likely with increasing age, in men rather than in women before menopause and if close relatives have suffered CHD early in life. These risk factors cannot be changed, however, there are other risk factors that can be modified. These are known as elevated blood cholesterol, overweight and obesity, smoking, lack of physical activity, unhealthy diet and stress.
You can prevent and control many CHD risk factors with heart-healthy changes and medication. There is only a few risk factors that can’t be controlled such as your age, gender and family history. Nonetheless, many lifestyle changes help control several CHD risk factors at the same time, such as physical activity which may reduce stress, lower your blood pressure, help control diabetes and help control your weight.
If you believe you are at risk of coronary heart disease, you can ask for a risk assessment for heart diseases, heart attack or stroke. However, current CHD risk assessment tools based on common risk factors such as blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels have low predictive value and take no account of genetic predisposition to CHD.
In recent years, Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) have been carried out to identify genetics variants associated with CHD. Meta-analysis of such studies has identified 19 variants as being associated with CHD.
Individually, the presence of an “at risk” variant does not greatly increase the risk of developing CHD. However, the presence of multiple “at risk” alleles can increase the risk of developing CHD two-fold or greater an effect similar to being a current smoker. Combining genotype information with common risk factors could allow individuals to be more accurately classified therefore preventative therapies and lifestyle advice can be targeted to those who require it most.
In order to utilise the GWAS findings within a clinical setting, individuals require to be genotyped for each of the 19 CHD “at risk” SNPs. However, at present this can be a time consuming and expensive process.
Together with key opinion leaders in cardiovascular genetics, Randox has developed the Cardiac Risk Prediction Array which will allow all 19 SNPs to be genotyped simultaneously, which incorporates a test to identify patients predisposed to statin induced myopathy.
Firstly, a multiplex PCR reaction is performed, where the products amplified correspond to the genotype of the patient sample. The PCR products are then hybridised onto the Cardiac Risk Prediction biochip array and imaged using the Evidence Investigator analyser to identify which PCR products are present. Patient samples can be genotyped within 1 day.
This Heart Month, we are urging the pubic to not only help raise awareness of heart disease but also educate themselves on the signs and symptoms to increase early diagnosis. As a global diagnostic company, Randox Biosciences are committed to the ongoing development of diagnostic tests, as well as our research into numerous disease areas to improve health worldwide.
To find out more email us at info@randoxbiosciences.com
Sources
1 – HeartUK
2 – National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
Heart attack test H-FABP 12 times faster than current methods
As the supplier of a pioneering diagnostic able to assist with differentiating between coronary pain and non-cardiac chest pain, Randox Laboratories has this week welcomed news about the importance of introducing new innovations which can significantly improve patient outcomes.
Prioritising people presenting with a heart attack over those with non-cardiac chest pain is one of the biggest challenges A&E doctors face – there are around 200,000 heart attacks each year in the UK, but around 1 million people come to A&E with chest pains. According to a team from King’s College London, as reported by the BBC, a faster, more accurate diagnosis of whether chest pain is caused by a heart attack would save the health service millions of pounds each year by sending well patients home and freeing up beds. Yet current testing methods do not efficiently differentiate between high-risk patients and the estimated 80% of patients who are not having a heart attack.
Randox’s revolutionary test for Heart-Type Fatty Acid-Binding Protein (H-FABP) however, when combined with current testing, is able to rule out a heart attack for patients who present at A&E with chest pain which is caused by other conditions such as respiratory issues, meaning they may not need emergency admission.
When measured at the time a patient presents to A&E with chest pain, H-FABP enables doctors to triage patients suffering with a heart attack more efficiently than before.
Dr. Gary Smyth, Medical Director at Randox Laboratories, hopes that more efficient testing will become widely available so that doctors can identify and prioritise patients at risk;
“Despite the best efforts of our NHS colleagues, EDs across the UK are under tremendous pressure. In many cases people are presenting with chest pain but aren’t suffering from a heart attack, and given that current cardiac tests are not as sensitive as clinicians would like, these patients are being admitted unnecessarily, taking up beds and valuable resources.
“It is imperative that newer, faster tests are adopted because fundamentally this means saving lives.”
H-FABP is released into the bloodstream within 30 minutes of a heart attack, whereas people who are currently admitted to hospital with chest pains may have to wait several hours for test results. Even the latest heart attack test to be adopted by the NHS, troponin, can take up to six hours to provide confirmation.
H-FABP, conversely, is released from the heart during the early stages of a heart attack and because it is so small, it can be detected when the heart cells are being damaged, rather than at the stage when troponin would usually be detected – when cell death has already occurred. The test can also be used to identify people who are at high risk of heart attack in the near future.
Dr. Peter FitzGerald, Founder and Managing Director of Randox Laboratories, commented;
“Research shows that patients who were troponin negative and therefore sent home from hospital, but who were positive for H-FABP, were at high risk of death – as high as a 20% chance of death that same year.
“If the H-FABP test was added to existing tests upon arrival at hospital, doctors could quickly and accurately rule out the 80% of chest pain patients who are not having a heart attack, allowing resources to be focused on those who are actually at high risk.”
For further information on H-FABP, please visit http://www.randox.com/h-fabp/, or contact the Randox PR team by phoning (0) 28 9442 2413 or emailing randoxpr@randox.com
