I am going to pursue the stress test. I have an appointment with a second cardiologist tomorrow and it is one thing I will press on. One issue here is that my main cardiologist is off the next two weeks - I think I was literally his last patient before his vacation. So there's no stress test to be done in his office until he returns. And as I said, he did order a new CT scan, this time with dye contrast. My understanding is that this might even be better than a stress test in terms of revealing potential blockages/build-up? That test is set for the first week of August - when he is back.

Interesting to hear your description of your lifestyle. I think I'd describe mine similarly. No smoking, not a heavy drinker, have a long history of exercise, and not overweight; I think my diet has probably been worse than yours. But it does seem that genetics have to be heavily implicated here to get me to such a high score at such a young age. I can imagine someone without my genetic load scoring a 0 with my lifestyle. Really seems like this calcium score is the major dividing line between who is and isn't vulnerable to heart attacks and stroke; not that it can't happen to someone with a 0 score, just that it's *vastly* more likely in our group. Real luck of the draw element to this, I think, and we both drew lousy hands. (I saw one general population study that estimated that 93% of people at age 40 have CAC scores of 0; so even to get a 1 would have put me in a small minority. To be at 397....)

I did also want to share this from some UK research that I stumbled on yesterday. It apparently came out last summer and it's a little confusing, but it seems to raise the possibility that high CAC scores could be related in some way to higher levels of exercise. It raises some interesting potential questions. I can't apparently post the link here because this system doesn't allow URL's from new members. But if you google "
Exercise may contribute to narrowing of arteries, research suggests," I think you may find some articles about the study.