Heart Disease:Risks and Symptoms

Here we outline nine factors that may put people at risk specifically for heart attack, not just heart disease. This lists reinforces the idea that the heart can be put at risk by more factors than the dietary fat, obesity, and smoking that share the majority of the blame.   View slideshow

Blood cholesterol is a risk factor for coronary artery disease and heart attack, so reducing your risk of high cholesterol is a worthy goal. However, the next time you brag that your cholesterol is nice and low—or lament that your number is in the mid-200s—know this: "Your total cholesterol is a pretty meaningless number," says Maureen Mays, MD, a preventive cardiologist and lipid specialist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland...  Read More

If your arteries start collecting plaque, your heart may have trouble getting enough blood. And if blood flow runs low, the heart complains—with pain. This is often one of the first symptoms of coronary artery disease (CAD)...  Read More

Some risk factors for heart disease can be controlled, and some can't. According to the American Heart Association, these are the leading factors that put you at risk for coronary artery disease or a heart attack...  Read More

About 65 million American adults—nearly one in three—have high blood pressure. In the United States, high blood pressure occurs more often in African Americans than in Caucasians...  Read More

Breathing polluted air can decrease the heart’s electrical functioning in people with serious coronary artery disease. Avoiding air pollution can reduce the risk of heart attack, heart failure, and other complications, especially in patients who are recovering after being hospitalized, according to Diane R. Gold, MD, the study’s senior author and an associate professor of medicine and environmental health at Harvard. In fact, air pollution plays a major role in the heart’s health. Smoking is a well-documented culprit in heart disease, but a 2003 study by New York University researchers found that a nonsmoker living in a polluted city has about the same risk of dying of heart disease as a former smoker.  Read More