Are you at risk for heart disease? Health conditions, lifestyle, age and family history can all increase your risk for heart disease. Some of these risks are out of our control (aging, family history), however other risk factors are manageable.
Your health is not always under your control. But you can control certain behaviors, such as what you eat, improving your physical condition, not smoking, and controlling your blood pressure.
Let’s talk about risk factors.
About half of Americans have at least one of the 3 big risk factors for heart disease – high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking. If you are a man, the risk increases at the age of 45, if you are a woman, the risk increases after the age of 55. These are the known risk factors that increase the risk of heart disease:
- Smoking
- Family history
- High LDL cholesterol
- High blood pressure
- Having diabetes
- Lack of physical activity
- To be overweight
- Unhealthy diet
Dealing with your risk
High blood pressure it is big. When left unchecked, high blood pressure can affect your heart and other major organs in your body, including your kidneys and brain.
Measure it. Take your prescribed medications correctly. And learn more about the DASH diet plan.
High LDL cholesterol it is also a risk factor. Cholesterol is a wax-like substance that can build up in the bloodstream and stick to artery walls. It leads to narrowing of the arteries and can reduce blood flow to the heart, brain, kidneys and other parts of the body.
Diabetes If you have diabetes, your body doesn’t make enough insulin or can’t use its own insulin as it should. Data shows that adults with diabetes are at greater risk of developing heart disease than adults without diabetes. If you have diabetes, you can definitely live well with it he eats to manage your blood sugar levels and include exercise in your daily routine.
Your weight. Being overweight increases the risk of higher blood levels of LDL and triglycerides and can be associated with high blood pressure. Losing weight is difficult but possible. Talk to your doctor and dietitian to get the support you need to manage your weight.
What are you eating. A diet high in saturated fat and trans fat has been linked to heart disease and related conditions. A diet high in sodium and low in fruits and vegetables may be associated with high blood pressure. Following a Mediterranean the DASH diet is a good choice for reducing risk factors and managing blood pressure.
A note on women and heart disease
Women have historically been overlooked when it comes to lifestyle, disease and treatment research. Fortunately, this has changed in recent years. Although there is still much to explore, it is known that women are at risk heart disease later in life, coinciding with menopause.
What you may not know is that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States. Heart disease is responsible for the deaths of 310,661 women in 2021. That’s 1 in 5 women’s deaths.
Know your numbers.
Lifestyle goals for reduction danger for women it is the same as for men. Complications during pregnancy, such as pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure or gestational diabetes, all increase women’s risk later in life. Women should they know their risk factors starting in their 30s, and then pay extra attention to your heart health in your 40s as you approach menopause. Estrogen serves as a protective factor against heart disease, and the decline in estrogen during perimenopause, along with other changes that occur during menopause and menopause, affect women’s risk.
Blood cholesterol and triglyceride numbers often begin to rise postmenopausal women as well as blood pressure. If you’re entering perimenopause (the years before menopause), it’s a good idea to start control about your blood pressure and ask your doctor about your cholesterol and blood glucose (sugar). Since diabetes is a risk factor, monitoring your blood sugar control over the years is important. This does not require home monitoring, but rather an annual blood test that checks blood glucose.
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