Coronary Heart Disease: Your Records After a Heart Attack Are Research Data

Every figure in this guide comes from a published source, linked where it appears and kept in CureCircle's evidence base with the source's own words. It is not medical advice. Read on 7 November 2026.

After a heart attack or a diagnosis of angina, life fills with records: ECGs, a heart scan, cholesterol tests every year, a list of new medicines and the side effects that came with them, cardiac rehab, changes to food, work and exercise. Research on recovery and prevention learns most from how those pieces fit together over years, and from what the person did and felt between appointments.

How many people live with it

A Global Burden of Disease report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology counted 197 million people with ischaemic heart disease in 2019, and another GBD analysis found 10.6 million new cases in 2017.

The records worth keeping

NICE's guidelines on heart attacks and on cardiovascular risk describe the tests that leave records:

• ECGs: a resting 12-lead ECG is part of assessing a suspected heart attack.
• A heart scan after a heart attack: NICE says to assess left ventricular function in all people who have had a STEMI, usually by echocardiogram.
• Cholesterol tests: an annual full lipid profile, and a liver test and lipid profile at 2 to 3 months after starting or changing lipid-lowering treatment.
• A yearly medicine review: NICE asks for annual medication reviews for people on lipid-lowering treatment.

Heart rate, steps and blood pressure from a watch or home monitor show how recovery went day by day. If you do not have your discharge letter or test results, ask the hospital or your practice for a copy.

What sharing it is worth

CureCircle values every contribution with a public benchmark built from what health data has sold for. A complete coronary heart disease story with a year of the records the guidelines list comes to about $92 per licence on the benchmark today. With 90 days of heart rate and activity data from a wearable added, it comes to about $201 per licence. Every line and its source is on the coronary heart disease page.

A licence is not a one-off sale: the same de-identified story can be licensed to several research teams, and you earn a share each time.

People who have had a heart attack are also paid for their time directly: a published listing offered heart attack and stroke patients $120 for a 30 to 60-minute phone interview.

How to share it

You start by writing what you live with in your own words; a few quick questions follow, then an AI interviewer asks about the details only you know, and you rate every treatment tried, from statins and stents to cardiac rehab. You can add discharge letters, ECG and scan reports and blood results as PDFs or photos, and the AI reads them into your own medical file. If you care for someone with heart disease, you can share their story with their permission. Before anything is shared, you read the de-identified summary and decide.

Start your story, or read what your health data is worth first.