Super Bowl champion uses AI to help detect for cardiovascular issues early

As a Super Bowl champion quarterback, Steve Beuerlein diagnosed defenses. Now, at 61, he is using AI to help predict what kind of heart issues could arise.

Beuerlein told Fox News Digital in a recent interview that as he has gotten older, he has thought about his mortality more.

"As you get a little older, you start thinking about your mortality a little bit more," Beuerlein told Fox News Digital in an interview with Heartflow.

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He enrolled in Heartflow’s Gamefilm registry, as the company is using revolutionary technology to help determine if someone is at risk of cardiovascular disease.

"I looked into it, did my research, and realized that what Heartflow had going as a company and their technology, which was the first of its kind, and AI-powered, completely revolutionary type of technology that went into this overall offering for detecting heart disease early-stage," Beuerlein said.

The Pro Bowl quarterback said his dad battled cardiovascular disease for 30 years, and with that in mind, he wanted to get checked himself.

"My dad kind of battled that for the last 30 years of his life. And so, of course, I was curious as to how I matched up and went through the whole process. It was painless, non-invasive, very efficient, a very easy process to go through. And then the detail when I got through it and came back, all the information that came back was so thorough and, for me, fortunately, it was very positive," Beuerlein said.

Beuerlein was not just impressed with how simple it was to get checked, but also how the power of the AI technology made the results so comprehensible.

"It's amazing how simple the procedure is to go through and yet with the technology that they have, a lot of it again powered by AI, you actually sit down with a doctor after you've gone through the process and the results come in, and you're literally looking at a computer," Beuerlein said.

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"You're seeing a 3D image of your heart, and they can rotate it around where you can see it from the front, from the rear."

The results allow the doctors and the patient to see into all the heart’s chambers. There is a color scale that identifies the areas where plaque starts to develop.

The hard plaque is cause for immediate concern, but the buildup of soft plaque is an issue as well.

The tests allow the patient to get a baseline of their current condition and give the ability for people to be proactive with their heart health instead of reactive.

"Fifty percent of first-time heart attack or significant heart episode events happen completely by surprise. People had no way of knowing that this was going to happen, that they had these issues. And that's what motivated Heartflow to kind of try to address it and come up with this revolutionary technology," Beuerlein said.

"A lot of times this is progressing in people and there's no signs, there's no symptoms. They have no way to really know that they're at risk."

More information on Heartflow’s technology can be found on its website, in addition to going to any doctor or healthcare center that has a partnership with the company.

Beuerlein played in the NFL for 14 seasons. He played for the then-Los Angeles Raiders, Dallas Cowboys, Arizona Cardinals, Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos. He was a backup quarterback when the Cowboys won the Super Bowl in 1992.

He made the Pro Bowl with the Panthers in 1999. In 147 games (102 starts), he completed 56.9% of passes for 24,046 yards, with 147 touchdowns and 112 interceptions.

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