OKLAHOMA CITY -- A doctor says that your risk for a heart attack might have everything to do with how sticky your blood is.

Video: Doctor Outlines Risk Of 'Sticky Blood'

Dr. Paul Gurbel told KOCO-TV that people with sticky blood are at a greater risk for a heart attack.

By sticky blood, Gurbel said he means platelet aggregation.

"The platelets stick to one another, to the vessel wall, and form a plug that obstructs the blood flow to the artery in the heart," Gurbel said.

He said he believes sticky blood is the primary cause of heart attacks and the major cause of death in people with heart disease. Gurbel's research on platelets has been in dozens of well-known medical journals, and he has presented his findings all over the world.

Gurbel said knowing how sticky one's platelets are is the holy grail in heart research.

He even goes as far as to say that if a person doesn't have sticky blood, the person will never have a heart attack.

Gurbel and his team are developing a simple test that could be used around the world to test for blood stickiness, similar to what is available for cholesterol testing.

"We measure cholesterol in everyone with vascular disease, yet the pivotal event that kills patients -- the platelets aggregate -- we don't do anything about," he said.