Risk Factors in Cardiovascular Diseases
The most important step in the fight against coronary heart disease is the prevention of the disease. In the presence of a number of risk factors, the disease appears and progresses rapidly. A fine level of good cholesterol (more than 60 mg/dl) reduces the risk of disease.
What are the Risk Factors?
1- Age: Men over 45 years old, women over 55 years old or women with premature menopause
2- Gender: It is more frequent in men
3- Family history: Having a father or brother before age 55 or a mother or sister before age 65 who has been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease myocardial infarction or who has had a sudden death
4- Smoking
5- Having hypertension (140/90 mmHg or more or being treated for hypertension)
6- Having good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) less than 40 mg/dl
7- Having a total cholesterol greater than 200 mg/dl (bad-LDL cholesterol greater than 130 mg/dl).
8- Inactivity: You should exercise for at least 30 minutes 3 days a week (brisk walking, swimming, cycling, dancing, gardening, etc.).
9- Diabetes Mellitus
10- Weight: The most important criteria in this context are body mass index and waist circumference. The formula for the body mass index is BMI = kg/m2, where kg stands for a person’s weight in kilograms and m2 stands for their height in meters squared. A body mass index of over 25 or a waist circumference of over 102 cm for men and 88 cm for women not only increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, but also the risk of diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure.
11- Stress: Exposure to constant stress over a long period of time favors the development of the disease.
12- Depression: Especially in the recent years, depression has been accepted as a risk factor in cardiovascular diseases.
What to do?
Some of these risk factors can be changed whereas some cannot (such as age, gender, family history).
Cardiovascular diseases are not transient diseases that leave no trace when they are cured unlike colds and flu. When the disease develops, it tends to progress continuously and cause problems. Therefore, it is extremely important to fight these risk factors, as this will prevent the disease from occurring and slow or even stop its progression in those who develop it. Thus, fighting cardiovascular disease means fighting changeable risk factors.