New heart disease markers no better than old: study� CLICK FOR MORE: "Sophisticated screening tests are no better at predicting life-threatening heart problems than simple old-fashioned risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, a study showed on Wednesday.

Thomas Wang of the Massachusetts General Hospital and his colleagues looked at 10 'biomarkers' that try to evaluate risk for heart disease, including C-reactive protein and homocysteine.

Their conclusion to be published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine: don't bother.

'The traditional risk factors that have stood the test of time turn out to be the best evaluation of risk,' Wang told Reuters.

He said some of the tests have other functions in medicine and might help doctors better understand heart disease.

But when it comes to using them to routinely test patients to assess their risk, 'there doesn't seem to be a role for keeping these biomarkers,' he said.

The conclusion is based on the longtime Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts in which 3,209 participants were followed for up to 10 years to see if any of the markers could foretell who would have a heart attack, stroke, or heart failure..."