Heart Attack Sign - Risk Factors You Can Control

Extensive research has identified many factors that increase the risk of coronary disease. Some of these risk factors are uncontrollable, such as family history or age, but you can eliminate many contributing factors by making changes in your lifestyle and diet. The more risk factors you have, the greater your chance is for developing coronary disease. Have you ever asked yourself, “Am I at risk for having a heart attack?” Below are some factors that may give you an answer.

Risk Factors That Can’t Be Changed

Age

More than 83 percent of people who die from heart attacks are 65 or older. Additionally, older women who have heart attacks are more likely to die from them in the first few weeks after the attack.

Heredity

Those with family histories of heart attacks are more likely to suffer from coronary disease. African Americans, Mexican Americans, American Indians, native Hawaiians and some Asian Americans have a higher risk of heart disease, due in part to higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Gender

Overall, men suffer from heart attacks more often than women, and they tend to have heart attacks at an earlier age. The rate of heart attacks in women increases after menopause, but not to the level found in men.

Risk Factors You Can Control

Tobacco Use

Smokers develop coronary heart disease at two to four times the rate of nonsmokers. Cigarette smoking doubles the risk of sudden cardiac death in patients with coronary heart disease. Exposure to other people’s smoke can increase the risk even in nonsmokers.

High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure overworks your heart, causing it to thicken and become stiffer. When high blood pressure is combined with high blood cholesterol, obesity, smoking, or diabetes, the risk increases several times.

High Blood Cholesterol

High blood cholesterol levels also increase your risk of coronary heart disease. When combined with other factors, the risk increases. A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and grains along with medication can be useful in lowering high blood cholesterol.

Physical Inactivity

A sedentary lifestyle increases the chance for developing coronary heart disease. Regular exercise helps the heart and can also help control obesity, blood cholesterol, and blood pressure.

Being Overweight

High levels of body fat, especially around the waist, lead to an increased risk of developing heart disease. The extra weight increases the heart’s workload. By losing as few as 10 pounds, you can lower your risk.

Diabetes Mellitus

About three quarters of people with diabetes die from coronary heart disease. Even when blood sugar levels are controlled, the risk is increased, and when the levels are not controlled, the risk is even greater.

Stress

The way you respond to stress may also be a contributing factor to developing heart disease. Stress may also affect other factors. For example, people suffering from stress may overeat, begin smoking or smoke more than usual, or drink alcohol to excess. Too much alcohol can produce irregular heartbeats and lead to obesity, as well.

Unfortunately, heart disease usually exhibits no symptoms; therefore, preventive screening is extremely important. Easy, non-invasive tests using color Doppler ultrasound and computer oscillometry can identify your risk of heart disease through determining if you have developed peripheral arterial disease, which causes you to be four to six times more likely to die from a heart attack. These tests can also provide information as to whether you have symptomless abdominal aortic aneurysms, which cause death in 90 percent of patients soon after arriving at the hospital.

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Heart Diseases Target In Women

Doctors now know that heart disease is so deadly for women that their chances of dying from it are one in two. That means basically that either you or your best girlfriend is likely to die of a heart attack, stroke , or related heart problem. Doctors have traditionally used a one-size-fits-all approach to identifying and diagnosing heart disease. In this view, women often lack the “classic” signs of reduced blood flow to part of the heart, a condition known as ischemia. Doctors and patients often attribute chest pains in women to noncardiac causes, leading to misinterpretation of their condition.

Men usually experience crushing chest pain during a heart attack.
Cardiovascular disease encompasses the diseases of the heart and the blood vessels. These develop and progress slowly over our lifetime and often without symptoms. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for more deaths than the next seven causes of death in women combined, including all forms of cancer. Since 1984, men have experienced a decline in deaths due to CVD; women have not. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one killer of women in the United States.

Long thought of as primarily affecting men, we now know that CVD—including heart disease, hypertension, and stroke—also affects a substantial number of women.
Estrogen provides a beneficial effect on the arteries. When estrogen production slows down, women lose that protective effect,” Even so, Kusler adds, women in their 30s and 40s still experience heart attacks. Estrogen serves as protection against heart disease in women, therefore once a woman has gone through menopause her risk increases dramatically.
Risk of coronary events begins to decline within months of stopping smoking and reaches the level of persons who have never smoked within 3 to 5 years. Sadly, though, smoking cessation rates have declined more slowly among women than men.

Risk was not associated with dose or duration of use of estrogen and did not persist after oral contraceptives were discontinued.
African Americans are at substantially higher risk for death from CVD than are whites. This difference is attributable in part to a greater risk for strokes and a higher prevalence of high blood pressure among African Americans. African American and Hispanic women, who are at higher risk of heart disease than white women, continue to have lower rates of awareness.
Aspirin therapy is recommended for women over age 65 to prevent heart attack and stroke as long as blood pressure is controlled and the benefit is likely to outweigh the risk of gastrointestinal side effects.

Regular use of aspirin is not recommended for healthy women under age 65 to prevent heart attacks. Aspirin treatment reduced risk of subsequent cardiovascular events by about 25%. Lipid-lowering therapy also appears to provide substantial benefit in secondary prevention in women. Aspirin has also been shown to be of preventive benefit in women to reduce the incidence of coronary artery disease and strokes. In women with multiple risk factors for coronary artery disease, a dose of 325 mg per day is recommended, while in lower-risk women, 81 mg is probably sufficient. Alexis Kenne wrote this article. If you liked it, there’s more where that came from! Visit http://ebooks-business.com/health/?p=134 or http://www.extend-yourlife.com to read more, and get Free High Quality Health and Fitness Reports just for stopping by ”

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