Scientists in Northern Ireland have devised a simple eye test that can detect heart disease.

Professor Tara Moore and her team on the Eye as a Window research project at Ulster University ran a trial on 150 patients to test the efficacy of the new camera-based test, which they hope will be developed into an app and become a standard optometry offering.

“This simple eye test offers direct and inexpensive observations of small blood vessels at the front of the eye (representing) the earliest site at which endothelial dysfunction can be observed. We hope the technology we are developing will have the ability to raise concerns about cardiac health, based on the condition of these eye vessels.”

In Northern Ireland, heart disease accounts for 40% of deaths.