A ‘Death Test’ which predicts the chance of a healthy person dying from any medical condition in the next five years has been developed by scientists.

Researchers said they were ‘astonished’ to discover that a simple blood test could predict if a person was likely to die – even if they were not ill.

They found that the levels of four ‘biomarkers’ in the body, when taken together, indicated a general level of ‘frailty’.

People whose biomarkers were out of kilter were five times more likely to die with five years of the blood test.

“What is especially interesting is that these biomarkers reflect the risk for dying from very different types of diseases such as heart disease or cancer. They seem to be signs of a general frailty in the body,” said Dr. Johannes Kettunen of the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Finland.