What are the risk factors for coronary artery disease?

Your heart contains coronary arteries that can become diseased when cholesterol builds up to form plaque in the lining of the artery. The risk factors for coronary artery disease are:

• gender
• age
• family history
• smoking
• high blood pressure
• high fat and cholesterol diet
• excessive alcohol intake
• overweight
• lack of exercise
• diabetes

Some heart disease risk factors are simply part of who we are, and cannot be changed. But many risk factors can be improved by following the treatment prescribed by your doctor and by making healthy lifestyle choices. That means you have the power to reduce your risk of heart disease.

Heart disease risk factors include the following:

• Age. The risk of cardiovascular disease increases as you age. 
• Gender. Men are more likely to develop heart disease than women, but that difference begins to disappear after women go through menopause.
• Family history. Your risk of heart disease is approximately doubled if a parent or a brother or sister developed heart disease early in life.
• Smoking. When you smoke, you expose your heart and blood vessels to nicotine, carbon monoxide and other harmful substances contained in smoke that can damage blood vessels.
• High cholesterol levels. High levels of LDL cholesterol - the so-called bad cholesterol - can increase the build-up of plaque in the arteries of the heart. It is also unhealthy to have low levels of HDL, or "good" cholesterol. 
• High blood pressure. If your blood pressure is above 140/90 mmHg for long periods of time, it can damage your blood vessels.
• Diabetes. High blood sugar levels can damage the blood vessels throughout the body, making it more likely that atherosclerotic plaques will develop.
• Being overweight or obese. Carrying around too much body weight not only puts a strain on your heart, it also makes it more difficult to control high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, and diabetes.
• Physical inactivity. A lack of exercise weakens your muscles and makes it harder to control several other heart disease risk factors, including blood pressure, cholesterol levels, diabetes, obesity and stress.
• Metabolic syndrome. The term metabolic syndrome is used to describe a cluster of traits that, together, increase the risk for developing heart disease. These traits include high blood sugar, high blood pressure, low levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, high blood levels of fats known as triglycerides, and excess body weight, particularly in the belly area.
• Stress. High levels of stress in your life, or a tendency to often feel angry, have also been linked to an increased risk for heart disease.
• High levels of C-reactive protein. CRP is produced by the body in response to infection or inflammation. If your CRP levels are high, your risk of having a heart attack is increased.

 

The vast majority of people who develop coronary artery disease have at least one major risk factor. Some of them you can't change, such as your age, gender, and genes. Yet there are many risk factors you can control. The key ones are your diet, exercise, and smoking. Making positive lifestyle choices like eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and not smoking will help reduce your risk for heart disease and help address other health problems (such as diabetes and high blood pressure) that raise your risk of heart disease.

There's yet another range of issues that falls somewhere in between: psychological factors, which include stress, depression, anxiety, neuroticism, and anger. On one hand, it might be difficult to control many of the events in your life that cause stress or hardship. On the other hand, you do have a certain degree of control over how you respond to those stresses.