Health Tips: 1 in 5 healthy people get this common medical test—Despite experts warning against it

The patients given an ECG were more than 5 times more likely to receive another cardiac test, a cardiac procedure, or consultation with a specialist.

Many guys are leaving their annual physical with something that they probably don’t need—an electrocardiogram, which often brings with it a domino effect of more doctor appointments and follow-up tests, a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine found.

In the study, researchers analyzed data from 3.6 million adult patients in Canada who had an annual health exam, or a regular checkup. They discovered that 22 percent of them had an electrocardiogram, or ECG—a test that checks for problems with the electrical activity of your heart—within 30 days of their appointment.

That’s in contrast to the 2012 guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Task Force, which recommended against ECG screening for prediction of heart disease in asymptomatic adults who are considered at low risk of heart disease.

The patients given an ECG were more than 5 times more likely to receive another cardiac test, a cardiac procedure, or consultation with a specialist.

These additional tests and medical consults might not be a problem if they protected the people’s health, but that didn’t seem to be the case. At the one-year mark, the group who received an ECG and those who didn’t had similar clinical outcomes. For instance, 0.46 percent of people with an ECG had a heart-related hospitalization, compared to 0.12 percent of those who didn’t take the test. And 0.19 percent of those given ECGs died within the year, compared to 0.16 percent of those who didn’t get the test.

The rate of events were so low they weren’t statistically significant, study author Sacha Bhatia, M.D. told The Toronto Star.

Bottom line: The ECGs “might lead to other tests that are inconvenient, expensive and could be harmful,” he told the paper.

Now, it’s not clear from the study whether the patients mentioned cardiac symptoms that could have prompted an ECG. But since a visit would usually not be coded as an annual physical if that were the case, that probably doesn’t apply, the researchers write. So if your doctor advises you to get one at your next checkup, ask him or her if there’s any specific heart-related concern that might be at play.

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