What are the risk factors for heart disease?
Risk factors are conditions that increase your risk of developing heart disease. Risk factors that we have no control over include gender, family history and age.Risk factors that can be changed, or controlled, are referred to as “Controllable Risk Factors.” These factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, and diabetes.Stress is sometimes listed as a possible risk factor for coronary artery disease, but in reality, we still don’t know exactly how stress might be involved in heart disease.Although each of these factors increases the risk of coronary artery disease, they do not describe all of the causes. In other words, even if a person had none of these risk factors, they might still develop coronary artery disease.
Factors known to increase your chances of developing heart disease can be broken into two categories–those that can be controlled (modified or treated) and those that can’t. Risk factors you do have control of are your cholesterol levels, your weight, your blood pressure, whether you smoke, and your physical activity. High cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, being overweight, smoking, and inactivity each can increase your risk of heart disease. Factors that you can’t control are your age, gender and your family history (and race). Men aged 65 and older are more at risk for heart disease and the risk increases with age. Children with parents who have had heart disease are at a greater risk than children whose parents have not had heart disease. African Americans as well as Mexican Americans, American Indians, native Hawaiians and some Asian Americans have a higher risk of heart disease than Caucasians. Source: American Heart Association; http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtm
