Too often, people who are evaluated for heart disease are discharged from the hospital as healthy, only to suffer a heart attack shortly thereafter.

Now, the government has approved a simple blood test that could change this.

Known as the PLAC Test, it is designed to spot heart disease that may be building in people who appear to be healthy.

The test is a simple blood draw that tracks the activity of a specific biological signal of vascular inflammation called Lp-PLA2. An elevated score indicates that this condition could be brewing in your body.

Chronic inflammation is a condition that occurs in the vessels of your body while you are unaware.

Increasingly it is viewed as a driver of atherosclerosis, the disease process that causes fat deposits to build up in the walls of the coronary arteries narrowing them and setting the stage for heart-attack causing blood clots.

The FDA approval was based on research involving 13,000 middle-aged people. It found that those with an elevated PLAC score had almost two times greater risk of having a heart attack.

Statin drugs, daily low-dose aspirin, and especially a plant-based diet can lower PLAC levels.

I have recommended the PLAC Test for years because it can spot conditions ripe for heart disease before it occurs, but insurers wouldn’t pay for it.

Now that the FDA has given it the okay, I hope it will become a standard test.