What Do You Know About Heart Disease Risk?

Healthy adults can reduce their risk for heart disease and a heart attack by:

• Staying at a healthy weight. This means a body mass index of less than 25.
• Getting enough exercise. This means 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week. Or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity.
• Having regular medical checkups
• Taking prescribed medicines
• Choosing healthy habits. For example, not smoking, not drinking too much alcohol, and controlling stress.

Meet with your healthcare provider at least once a year, or more often if you have health concerns. This is to make sure you are on top of your health and heart disease prevention.

Smokers who smoke 1 pack per day are more than twice as likely as nonsmokers to have a heart attack. Smoking is one of the strongest preventable risk factors for heart disease. Talk with your doctor today about how to quit.

They include gender (adults assigned male at birth have a higher risk for early heart attack), age (your risk of heart attack increases as you get older), and family (you have an increased risk if your father or mother had heart disease). These are out of your control, but making changes to your lifestyle is a big part of preventing heart disease.

Getting 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week is tied to good health. This can also help you reduce your risk for heart disease. This physical activity can be done in 30- to 40-minute chunks on most days of the week. Good choices are walking, cycling, and swimming. You can also choose activities you enjoy such as dancing and aerobics.

Adults assigned male at birth should not have more than 2 drinks a day. Adults assigned female at birth should limit themselves to 1 drink a day. If you do not already drink, you should not start drinking in order to lower your risk for heart disease. Other lifestyle changes can help with that.

Your heart must work harder than normal when your blood pressure is high. When this occurs over a long time, the heart can enlarge and arteries can become scarred and hardened. This can lead to increased risk for heart disease and even a heart attack.

Nearly half of all adults in the U.S. have some form of cardiovascular disease. This includes heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and high blood pressure. More than 500,000 deaths each year are related to cardiovascular disease. More people die from cardiovascular disease than from all cancers and chronic lung disease combined.

Some people ages 45 and older who survive a first heart attack are at increased risk of having another heart attack in the next 5 years.

Moderate exercise approved by your healthcare provider plays an important role in controlling the disease. Talk with your provider about an exercise plan that is right for you. You may need to be in a cardiac rehab (rehabilitation) program if you have already had a heart attack.

Your risk increases if you're overweight. This is because being overweight increases your risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. These conditions also increase the risk for heart disease.

Estrogen provides younger adults assigned female at birth some protection against heart disease. But that protection is lost after menopause, when those adults have roughly the same risk as adults assigned male at birth.

Research shows a link between heart disease and high levels of stress and hostility. Stress increases hormone levels. These put higher demands on the heart.

The food you eat has a direct impact on 3 major risk factors for heart disease: weight, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol. It's important to understand the relationship that these all have to prevent heart disease. Talk with your healthcare provider if you have questions.

A treadmill test (or exercise stress test) can help diagnose atherosclerosis, or the narrowing of the heart's arteries. Other tests include a radionucleotide myocardial perfusion stress test and CT scan. These can also help diagnose a narrowing of the arteries in your heart. But the gold standard test is a cardiac catheterization (coronary angiogram). This test lets your healthcare provider see any blockages in your heart's arteries.