CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE RISK FACTORS

The heart and blood vessels are among the most important structures in the human body.  By protecting your cardiovascular system, you lay the groundwork for an exciting, productive, and energetic life.  The best time to start protecting and improving your cardiovascular system is early in life, when lifestyle patterns are developed and reinforced.  Of course, it’s difficult to move backward through time, so the second best time to start protecting your heart is today.  Improvements in certain lifestyle activities can pay significant dividends as your life unfolds.

The American Heart Association encourages people to protect and enhance their heart health by examining the ten cardiovascular risk factors related to various forms of heart disease.  A cardiovascular risk factors is an attribute that a person has or is exposed to that increases the likelihood that he or she will develop some form of heart disease.  The first three risk factors are ones you will be unable to change.  An additional six risk factors are ones you can change.  One final risk factor is one that is thought to be a contributing factor to heart disease.

Risk Factors That Cannot Be changed

The three risk factors that you cannot change are increasing age, male gender, and heredity.  However, your knowledge that they might be an influence in your life should encourage you to make a more serious commitment to the risk factors you can change.

Increasing Age

Heart diseases tend to develop gradually over the course of one’s life.  Although we may know of a few who experienced a heart attack in their twenties or thirties, most of the serious consequences of heart disease are evident in older ages.  For example, approximately 84% of people who die from heart diseases are age 65 and older.

Male Gender

Women have lower rates of heart disease than men prior to age 55.  Yet when women move through menopause (typically in their fifties), their rate of heart disease are similar to those of men.  It is though that women are somewhat more protected from heart disease than men because of their natural production of the hormone estrogen during their fertile years.

Heredity

Like increasing age and male gender, heredity cannot be changed.  By the luck of the draw, some people are born into families in which heart disease has never been a serious problem; others are into families in which heart disease is quite prevalent.  In this latter case children are said to have a genetic predisposition (tendency) to develop heart disease as they grow and develop throughout their lives.  These people have every reason to be highly motivated to reduce the risk factors they can control.

Race is also a consideration related to heart disease.  African Americans have moderately high blood pressure at rates twice that of whites and severe hypertension at rates three times higher than whites.  Hypertension significantly increases the risk of both heart disease and stroke; however, it can be controlled through a variety of methods.  It is especially important for African Americans to take advantage of every opportunity to have their blood pressure measured so that preventive actions can be started immediately if necessary.

Risk Factors That Can Be Changed

There are six cardiovascular risk factors that are influenced largely by our lifestyle choices.  These risk factors are cigarette and tobacco smoke, physical inactivity, high blood cholesterol level, high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, and obesity and overweight.  Healthful behavior changes you make for these “big six” risk factors can help you protect and enhance your cardiovascular system.

Tobacco Smoke

Smokers have a heart attack risk that is 2 – 4 times that of nonsmokers.  Smoking cigarettes is the major risk factor associated with sudden cardiac death.  In fact, smokers have two to four times the risk of dying from sudden cardiac arrest than nonsmokers.

Cigarette or tobacco smoke also adversely affects nonsmokers who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.  Studies suggest that the risk of death caused by heart disease is increased about 30% in people exposed to secondhand smoke in the home.  Because of the health threat to nonsmokers, restrictions on indoor smoking in public areas and business settings are increasing tremendously in every part of the country.

For years, it was believed that if you had smoked for many years, it was pointless to try to quit; tha damage to one’s health could never be reversed.  However, the American Heart Association now indicates that by quitting smoking, regardless of how long or how much you have smoked, your risk of heart disease declines rapidly.  For people who have smoked a pack or less of cigarettes per day, within 3 years after quitting smoking, their heart disease risk is virtually the same as those who never smoked.

This news is exciting and should encourage people to quit smoking, regardless of how long they have smoked.  Of course, if you have started to smoke recently, the healthy approach would be to quit now – before the nicotine controls your life and leads to heart disease or damages your lungs or causes lung cancer.

Physical Inactivity

Lack of regular physical activity is a significant risk factor for heart disease.  Regular aerobic exercise helps strengthen the heart muscle, maintain heathy blood vessels, and improve the ability of the vascular system to transfer blood and oxygen to all parts of the body.  Additionally, physical activity helps lower overall blood cholesterol levels for most people, encourages weight loss and retention of lean muscle mass, and allows people to moderate the stress in their lives.

With all the benefits of physical activity, it amazes health professionals that so many Americans refuse to become regularly active.  Some people feel that they don’t have enough time or that they must work out strenuously.  Only 20 to 60 minutes of moderate aerobic activity three to five times each week can decrease your risk of heart disease.  This is not a large price to pay for a lifetime of cardiovascular health.

If you are middle-aged or older and have been inactive, consult with a physician before starting an exercise program.  Also, if you have any known health condition that could be aggravated by physical activity, check with a physician first.

High Blood Cholesterol Level

The third controllable risk factor for heart disease is high blood cholesterol level.  Generally speaking, the higher the blood cholesterol level, the greater the risk for heart disease.  When high blood cholesterol levels are combined with other important risk factors, risks become much greater.

Fortunately, blood cholesterol levels are relatively easy to measure.  Many campus health, fitness, and wellness centers provide cholesterol screenings for employees and students.  These screenings help identify people whose cholesterol levels (or profiles) may be potentially dangerous.  Medical professionals have been able to determine the link between person’s diet and his or her cholesterol levels. People with high blood cholesterol levels are encouraged to consume a heart-healthy diet and to become physically active.  In recent years a variety of cholesterol-lowering drugs have been developed that are very effective.

High Blood Pressure

The fourth of “big six” cardiovascular risk factors is high blood pressure, or hypertension.  You will soon be reading more about hypertension, but for now, suffice it to say that high blood pressure can seriously damage a person’s heart and blood vessels.  High blood pressure causes the heart to work much harder, eventually causing the heart to enlarge and weaken.  It increases the chances to stroke, heart attack, congestive heart failure, and kidney disease.

When high blood pressure is present along with other risk factors, risk for stroke or heart attack is increased tremendously.  Yet this “silent killer” is easy to monitor and can be effectively controlled using a variety of approaches.  This is the positive message about high blood pressure.

Diabetes Mellitus

Diabetes mellitus is a debilitating chronic disease that has a significant effect on the human body.  In addition to increasing the risk developing kidney disease, blindness, and nerve damage, diabetes increases the likelihood of developing heart and blood vessel diseases.  Over 65% of people with diabetes die of some type of heart or blood vessel disease.  The cardiovascular damage is thought to occur due to the abnormal levels of cholesterol and blood fat found in individuals with diabetes.  With weight management, exercise, dietary changes, and drug therapy, diabetes can be relatively well controlled in most people.  Even with careful management of this disease, diabetic patients are susceptible to eventual heart and blood vessel damage.

Obesity and Overweight

Even if they have no other risk factors, obese people are more likely than nonobese people to develop heart disease and stroke.  Obesity, particularly if located primarily around the abdomen, places considerable strain on the heart, and it tends to influence blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels.  Also, obesity tends to trigger diabetes in predisposed people.  The importance of maintaining body weight within a desirable range minimizes the chance of obesity ever happening.  To accomplish this, maintain a active lifestyle and follow the dietary guidelines

Contributing Risk Factors

The American Heart Association identifies other risk factors that may contribute to CVD.  These include individual response to stress, sex hormones, birth control pills, and drinking too much alcohol.  Unresolved stress can encourage negative health dependencies (for example, smoking, poor dietary practices, underactivity) that lead to changes in blood fat profiles, blood pressure, and heart workload.  Female sex hormones tend to protect women from CVD until they reach menopause, but hormones do the opposite.  Birth control pills can increase the risk of blood clots and heart attack, although the risk is small unless the woman also smokes and is over age 35.  The consumption of too much alcohol can cause elevated blood pressure, heart failure, and lead to stroke, although moderate drinking (no more than one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men) is associated with lower risk of heart disease.