What types of heart problems can teenagers get?
Knowing your personal risk for heart disease is the first step in prevention. Your risk is greatly increased if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol. There is also hard evidence that certain ethnic groups including African Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians are at an increased risk for this disease. It is believed that this increase risked among these groups is due to the higher rates of diabetes and obesity they exhibit. There are many risk factors that influence the development of heart disease. If you have 2 or more risk factors, your risk for heart disease is quadrupled. Three or more and your risk of heart disease is 8 to 20 times higher than if you had no risk factors at all. Many of these risk factors are interrelated. It is important to recognize the non-modifiable risk factors (risk factors you cannot change) and the modifiable risk factors (the risk factors you can change). Being overweight and obese is a large risk factor
