New blood test may predict if you'll be alive in 5 years

By Nathan Rousseau Smith, Veuer

How long do we have left to live? It's a question for which many would like to know the answer. Now, one blood test may hold some answers.

A team of researchers in France and the U.K. may be able to predict if a middle-aged adult will be alive 5 years down the road.

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The team studied 6,500 men and women aged 45 to 69 looking for inflammation markers.

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One marker called IL-6 appears to be an accurate way to assess risk of death within 5 years.

The marker in the blood can detect cancer, heart disease and other serious conditions.

The people in the study were followed for almost two decades to see if they had died in 2015, and researchers concluded that in this study, the IL-6 marker was the best predictor of death.

Commenting on the quote "exciting" findings, one professor did clarify that it's still uncertain "whether reducing inflammation can reduce cardiovascular event rates."

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