BOSTON -- Mammograms are designed to detect breast cancer, but new research shows mammograms may predict an illness that is an even bigger killer of women -- heart disease.

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NewsCenter 5's medical reporter Heather Unruh said that the Mayo Clinic study found routine mammograms may help detect heart disease because of plaques of white calcification.

Calcification or calcium deposits are as unmistakable to radiologists as abnormal breast arteries.

"The calcifications that develop in arteries are so typical that it's very, very rare to mistake them for calcifications that potentially might be harmful or represent a tiny cancer," Brigham and Women's Hospital Dr. Jack Meyer said.

Women in the study with significant breast artery calcifications were 20 percent more likely to have heart disease than women with none, even when there were no symptoms.

Cardiologist Christopher Cannon calls the research an important first step.

"They don't have consequences if they're in the breast, but it's a screening tool that you can see them there, that might be a hint that there may be blockages in other arteries where it's more dangerous," Cannon said.

Given the fact that 365,000 women die of heart disease each year -- compared to about 40,000 from breast cancer -- doctors have begun debating whether mammograms should now be used to screen for heart disease.

"We are looking in cardiology for non invasive tests to screen for heart disease which is such a problem. This is a test that's done in hundreds of millions of women, and so, it's potentially a way to save lives," Cannon said.

The American Heart Association calls the research preliminary, but says if it holds true, mammograms could offer an important piece of information in identifying women at risk of dying from the nations number one killer.

The study was presented today at the Radiological Society of North America.