Simple fitness test may predict heart attack, stroke risk for those in middle age

http://www.abqjournalfit.com/2011/05/20/simple-fitness-test-may-predict-heart-attack-stroke-risk-for-those-in-middle-age/
And now post-stroke  I couldn't run a mile if someone put a gun to my head.

I have no clue how fast I could have run the mile prior to the event but I was really in shape, I carried a canoe on a 1.5 mile portage the week before. But since I didn't die I guess I prove the prediction.
How fast can you run a mile?
If you’re a middle-age person, the answer could offer a strong predictor of your risk of heart attack or stroke during the next 10 years or more.
In two studies, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas found that how fast a middle-age person can run a mile can help predict the risk of dying of heart attack or stroke decades later for men and could be an early indicator of cardiovascular disease for women.
According to a UT Southwestern news release, in one of the studies, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers analyzed the heart disease risk of 45-, 55- and 65-year-old men based on their fitness levels and traditional risk factors such as age, systolic blood pressure, diabetes, total cholesterol and smoking habits. The scientists found that low levels of midlife fitness are associated with marked differences in the lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease, the news release said.
For example, a 55-year-old man who needs 15 minutes to run a mile has a 30 percent lifetime risk of developing heart disease. In contrast, a 55-year-old who can run a mile in eight minutes has a lifetime risk of less than 10 percent.
“Heart disease tends to cluster at older ages, but if you want to prevent it, our research suggests that the prescription for prevention needs to occur earlier — when a person is in his 40s and 50s,” said Dr. Jarett Berry, assistant professor of internal medicine and a corresponding author on both of the studies.
In the other study, reported in the journal Circulation, researchers found that the same treadmill test predicts how likely a person is to die of heart disease or stroke more accurately than assessing the risk using only typical prediction tools such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels, the news release said.
Heart disease is a leading killer in industrialized nations and the No. 1 killer of women in the U.S. Women younger than 50 are particularly difficult to assess for long-term cardiovascular risk.
“Nearly all women under 50 years of age are at low risk for heart disease,” Berry said. “However, as women get older, their risk increases dramatically. In our study, we found that low levels of fitness were particularly helpful in identifying women at risk for heart disease over the long term.”
For both studies, researchers collected information from thousands of participants who underwent a comprehensive clinical exam and a treadmill exercise test at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas between 1970 and 2006.