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Understanding the risk factors that cause heart disease can be the first step towards a healthier heart.
There are three main types of risk factors that can cause heart disease; lifestyle, clinical and natural risk factors.
You can help your heart by eating a healthy diet, taking regular physical exercise and not smoking. These are lifestyle factors that can affect clinical risk factors such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes and obesity.
You can't do anything to avoid natural risk factors such as your age, gender and family medical history. However, these natural risk factors can be minimised or even eliminated by making the right lifestyle changes.
Lifestyle Risk Factors
- Smoking
- Eating an unhealthy diet
- Lack of physical activity
Click on the links opposite to find out how you can help your heart through simple lifestyle changes.
Clinical Risk Factors
- High blood pressure
- Raised blood cholesterol
- Diabetes
- Being overweight or obese
Leading a healthy lifestyle can prevent you from developing these health problems, or significantly improve them.
Natural Risk Factors
- Age. The older you are, the greater the risk
- Gender. Women are less likely to develop heart disease (but only before the menopause).
- Family history. If a close relative under the age of 55 suffered from heart disease or stroke there may be in increased risk in your family.
- Body shape. If you have a large waist measurement, the risks are increased so it is better to be 'pear-shaped' than 'apple-shaped'. If you are naturally apple shaped you are more likely to be at risk.
You can't change these but a healthy lifestyle will reduce the risk so browse these pages to find out how you can help your heart.
For more information contact Heart Research UK's Lifestyle Officer on 0113 297 6206 or email lifestyle@heartresearch.org.uk
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