Causes of Heart Disease

Coronary heart disease can progress slowly, often without warning. Some risk factors, like gender, are uncontrollable. Others may be caused by a person’s lifestyle choices.

It is important to recognize these risk factors so you and your doctor can help manage your risk for heart disease.

Coronary heart disease risk factors include:

Smoking

Smoking can speed up hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). Because nicotine constricts coronary arteries, smoking also increases the chances of forming a blood clot in the narrowed artery. As a result, more smokers die each year from heart disease than any other smoking-related illness.

High Cholesterol

Having high cholesterol increases the likelihood of developing heart disease, and also increases your risk for heart attack or stroke. But reducing your cholesterol a little can make a big difference. For every 1% reduction in total blood cholesterol, you lower your risk for a heart attack by 2%. Cut your blood cholesterol level by 15%, and your risk of developing heart disease drops by 30%.

High Blood pressure

High blood pressure can damage the delicate lining of your blood vessels. Left untreated, it can cause a thickening of your artery walls and lead to serious, even fatal, complications.

Diabetes

Diabetes can lead to many other conditions that affect your cardiovascular health. Diabetes can damage blood vessels, raise “bad” cholesterol levels, lower “good” cholesterol levels, and raise blood pressure. Because of this, more than 80% of people with diabetes die from some form of heart disease.

Obesity

Excess weight can lead to the development of several other heart disease risk factors, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Obesity is defined as weighing 20% over your ideal weight or more.

Lack of physical activity

People who exercise less than 20 to 30 minutes a day, three times a week, have a greater risk for obesity and high cholesterol than people who are more active. And these factors can contribute to heart disease.

Family History

If a close relative such as a parent, grandparent, or aunt, has experienced a heart attack or angina, you are at a higher risk of developing heart disease.

  Age

Age is a contributing risk factor for developing heart disease. As you age, your blood vessels become less flexible and more likely to develop atherosclerosis. Also, other risk factors, such as lack of physical activity, increase with age.

  Gender

Men have heart attacks earlier in life than women.However, older women are more likely than men to have fatal heart attacks, after they lose the protective effect of estrogen.