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Cardiovascular Disease In Us Resource
Understanding Heart Disease and Stroke
Heart disease and stroke are both incredibly serious ailments, and are both alarmingly common afflictions worldwide. Although there is no surefire way to protect yourself against heart disease and stroke, there are certain things that you can do to try to prevent it, which will be discussed here.
Risk Factors for Heart Disease and Stroke
Increasing age is one of the biggest risk factors, and this is obviously impossible to avoid, as we all get older whether we like it or not. People, especially women, as they get older, their risk of heart disease and stroke begins to rise and continues to rise with age. Gender also plays a role as a major risk factor, as men have a much greater risk of heart attack than women do.
Family history also plays a role here, as both men and women are more likely to develop heart disease and stroke if it runs in their family. Race is also a factor because black women are at much greater risk than white women, and compared with whites, African-American women and men are both much more likely to die of stroke than Caucasian women and men.
Modifiable Risk Factors
Although some risk factors, such as family history and age cannot be modified or reversed, there are certain risk factors that can be. Cigarette smoking, for instance, is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, however smoking is preventable. If you do not smoke, then you should certainly not start, and if you do, you should find treatment and quit as soon as you possibly can.
High blood cholesterol is another of the most major risk factors for heart disease and for stroke that can be treated or controlled, and the best way to do this is to ensure that you are living a healthy lifestyle, including eating a nutritious diet and getting plenty of regular exercise.
High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart attack and is actually the most important risk factor for stroke. The best way to lower your blood pressure is to reduce or even completely eliminate sodium from your diet, and as well you want to stop drinking alcohol, if this applies to you, because in most people alcohol causes blood pressure to rise quite a lot.
By taking all of the previously mentioned facts into consideration and following through with them, you will be able to greatly protect yourself against both heart disease and stroke, as well as various other heart and health conditions.
Also, men will be more prone to coronary heart disease as compared with women. Sleep apnea occurs when a person actually stops breathing at points during their sleep, and it is a common disorder which can be incredibly serious. In fact, if a woman is given to snoring regularly, she may be about thirty-three percent more likely to suffer heart attacks or even strokes. Exercise is very helpful but if overly strenuous, it could have the potential to do more harm than good. Another one of the major causes of coronary heart disease is cigarette and tobacco smoke, as a smokers risk of developing heart disease is twice that of a nonsmoker, and studies have actually shown that after five years of giving up smoking, the risk of developing heart disease is the same as that of someone who had never smoked in their life. |
