Your risk of heart disease and stroke increases after menopause Read more. If you have a close relative who has experienced heart disease at an early age, you are at an increased risk.

People of African or South Asian heritage are more likely to have high blood pressure, diabetes or other risk factors. First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples are more likely to have high blood pressure and diabetes. This puts them at greater risk of heart disease.

Personal circumstances and environmental factors have an influence on your health. This includes things such as access to healthy food, safe drinking water, health services and social services.

Eating lots of veggies, cooking at home, limiting processed foods these are all habits that protect your health. Explore recipes, tips and more. Move more. Walk, rake leaves, play a sport.

Find ways to be active in your daily life. Get ideas and tips from the experts. Donate now. Risk and prevention. Lifestyle risk factors. Unhealthy diet. Physical inactivity. Unhealthy weight. More on lifestyle risks. This leads to narrowing of the arteries and can decrease the blood flow to the heart, brain, kidneys, and other parts of the body.

High blood cholesterol usually has no signs or symptoms. The only way to know whether you have high cholesterol is to get your cholesterol checked. Learn more about getting your cholesterol checked. Diabetes mellitus. Your body needs glucose sugar for energy. Diabetes causes sugar to build up in the blood.

The risk of death from heart disease for adults with diabetes is higher than for adults who do not have diabetes. Obesity is excess body fat. Obesity can lead to high blood pressure and diabetes as well as heart disease.

Talk with your health care team about a plan to reduce your weight to a healthy level. Learn more about healthy weight. When members of a family pass traits from one generation to another through genes, that process is called heredity. Genetic factors likely play some role in high blood pressure, heart disease, and other related conditions.

However, it is also likely that people with a family history of heart disease share common environments and other factors that may increase their risk. The risk for heart disease can increase even more when heredity combines with unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking cigarettes and eating an unhealthy diet.

Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women. Heart disease can happen at any age, but the risk goes up as you age.

Heart disease and stroke can affect anyone, but some groups are more likely to have conditions that increase their risk for cardiovascular disease.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, and white people. For Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Hispanics, heart disease is second only to cancer.

Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search. Español Other Languages. Know Your Risk for Heart Disease. Minus Related Pages. You can take steps to lower your risk for heart disease by changing the factors you can control.

What behaviors increase the risk of heart disease? Your lifestyle can increase your risk for heart disease. Eating a diet high in saturated fats, trans fat, and cholesterol has been linked to heart disease and related conditions, such as atherosclerosis.

Also, too much salt sodium in the diet can raise blood pressure. Not getting enough physical activity can lead to heart disease. It can also increase the chances of having other medical conditions that are risk factors, including obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

Regular physical activity can lower your risk for heart disease. Drinking too much alcohol can raise blood pressure levels and the risk for heart disease. It also increases levels of triglycerides, a fatty substance in the blood which can increase the risk for heart disease. Women should have no more than 1 drink a day.

Men should have no more than 2 drinks a day. Tobacco use increases the risk for heart disease and heart attack: Cigarette smoking can damage the heart and blood vessels, which increases your risk for heart conditions such as atherosclerosis and heart attack.

Nicotine raises blood pressure. Carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke reduces the amount of oxygen that your blood can carry.

Sleeping for too short or too long a stretch is associated with heart disease and can negatively affect other heart-related risk factors like dietary intake, exercise, weight, blood pressure, and inflammation.

Talk with your doctor if you have frequent restless nights or do not feel adequately rested during the day. Improving sleep habits can make a difference. Examples include setting a sleep schedule and sticking to it, having a calming bedtime ritual like doing stretches or meditating, getting regular exercise, stopping use of electronic devices an hour before bedtime, and avoiding heavy meals, caffeine, and alcohol several hours before bed.

Other factors to consider Along with these five practices, the American Heart Association recommends controlling cholesterol, managing blood sugar, and managing blood pressure as additional factors for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health.

References Lloyd-Jones DM, Hong Y, Labarthe D, et al. Kenfield SA, Stampfer MJ, Rosner BA, Colditz GA. Smoking and smoking cessation in relation to mortality in women. Babb S, Malarcher A, Schauer G, Asman K, Jamal A. Quitting Smoking Among Adults — United States, Morbidity and mortality weekly report.

Willett WC, Manson JE, Stampfer MJ, et al. Weight, weight change, and coronary heart disease in women. Bogers RP, Bemelmans WJ, Hoogenveen RT, et al.

Association of overweight with increased risk of coronary heart disease partly independent of blood pressure and cholesterol levels: a meta-analysis of 21 cohort studies including more than persons.

Archives of internal medicine. Berrington de Gonzalez A, Hartge P, Cerhan JR, et al. Body-mass index and mortality among 1. N Engl J Med. Canoy D, Cairns BJ, Balkwill A, et al. Body mass index and incident coronary heart disease in women: a population-based prospective study.

BMC Med. Rimm EB, Stampfer MJ, Giovannucci E, et al. Body size and fat distribution as predictors of coronary heart disease among middle-aged and older US men. American journal of epidemiology. Colditz GA, Willett WC, Rotnitzky A, Manson JE. Weight gain as a risk factor for clinical diabetes mellitus in women.

Ann Intern Med. Huang Z, Willett WC, Manson JE, et al. Body weight, weight change, and risk for hypertension in women. Maclure KM, Hayes KC, Colditz GA, Stampfer MJ, Speizer FE, Willett WC.

Weight, diet, and the risk of symptomatic gallstones in middle-aged women. Zhang C, Rexrode KM, van Dam RM, Li TY, Hu FB. Abdominal obesity and the risk of all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality: sixteen years of follow-up in US women.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Clinical guidelines on the identification, evaluation, and treatment of overweight and obesity in adults: the evidence report. Bethesda, MD; Ford ES, Caspersen CJ.

Sedentary behaviour and cardiovascular disease: a review of prospective studies. International journal of epidemiology. Matthews CE, George SM, Moore SC, et al. Amount of time spent in sedentary behaviors and cause-specific mortality in US adults.

The American journal of clinical nutrition. Chomistek AK, Manson JE, Stefanick ML, et al. Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Dunstan DW, Barr EL, Healy GN, et al. Television viewing time and mortality: the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study AusDiab. Patel AV, Bernstein L, Deka A, et al. Leisure time spent sitting in relation to total mortality in a prospective cohort of US adults. Warren TY, Barry V, Hooker SP, Sui X, Church TS, Blair SN.

Sedentary behaviors increase risk of cardiovascular disease mortality in men. Med Sci Sports Exerc. Chiuve SE, Fung TT, Rimm EB, et al. Alternative dietary indices both strongly predict risk of chronic disease.

The Journal of nutrition. Estruch R, Ros E, Salas-Salvadó J, et al. Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a mediterranean diet supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts. New England Journal of Medicine. Shan Z, Li Y, Baden MY, Bhupathiraju SN, Wang DD, Sun Q, Rexrode KM, Rimm EB, Qi L, Willett WC, Manson JE, Qi Q, Hu FB.

Association Between Healthy Eating Patterns and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease. JAMA Intern Med. Published online June 15, Yu E, Malik VS, Hu FB.

Cardiovascular Disease Prevention by Diet Modification: JACC Health Promotion Series. Stampfer MJ, Hu FB, Manson JE, Rimm EB, Willett WC. Primary prevention of coronary heart disease in women through diet and lifestyle.

Chiuve SE, McCullough ML, Sacks FM, Rimm EB. Healthy lifestyle factors in the primary prevention of coronary heart disease among men: benefits among users and nonusers of lipid-lowering and antihypertensive medications.

Chiuve SE, Rexrode KM, D. S, Logroscino G, Manson JE, Rimm EB. High blood cholesterol usually has no signs or symptoms. The only way to know whether you have high cholesterol is to get your cholesterol checked.

Learn more about getting your cholesterol checked. Diabetes mellitus. Your body needs glucose sugar for energy. Diabetes causes sugar to build up in the blood.

The risk of death from heart disease for adults with diabetes is higher than for adults who do not have diabetes. Obesity is excess body fat. Obesity can lead to high blood pressure and diabetes as well as heart disease.

Talk with your health care team about a plan to reduce your weight to a healthy level. Learn more about healthy weight.

When members of a family pass traits from one generation to another through genes, that process is called heredity. Genetic factors likely play some role in high blood pressure, heart disease, and other related conditions. However, it is also likely that people with a family history of heart disease share common environments and other factors that may increase their risk.

The risk for heart disease can increase even more when heredity combines with unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking cigarettes and eating an unhealthy diet.

Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women. Heart disease can happen at any age, but the risk goes up as you age. Heart disease and stroke can affect anyone, but some groups are more likely to have conditions that increase their risk for cardiovascular disease.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, and white people.

For Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Hispanics, heart disease is second only to cancer. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search.

Español Other Languages. Know Your Risk for Heart Disease. Minus Related Pages. You can take steps to lower your risk for heart disease by changing the factors you can control. What behaviors increase the risk of heart disease? Your lifestyle can increase your risk for heart disease.

Eating a diet high in saturated fats, trans fat, and cholesterol has been linked to heart disease and related conditions, such as atherosclerosis. Also, too much salt sodium in the diet can raise blood pressure. Not getting enough physical activity can lead to heart disease. It can also increase the chances of having other medical conditions that are risk factors, including obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

Regular physical activity can lower your risk for heart disease. Drinking too much alcohol can raise blood pressure levels and the risk for heart disease. It also increases levels of triglycerides, a fatty substance in the blood which can increase the risk for heart disease.

Women should have no more than 1 drink a day. Men should have no more than 2 drinks a day. Tobacco use increases the risk for heart disease and heart attack: Cigarette smoking can damage the heart and blood vessels, which increases your risk for heart conditions such as atherosclerosis and heart attack.

Nicotine raises blood pressure. Carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke reduces the amount of oxygen that your blood can carry.

Exposure to secondhand smoke can also increase the risk for heart disease, even for nonsmokers.

Some risk factors for heart disease cannot be controlled, such as your age or family history. But you can take steps to lower your risk by changing the factors you can control.

High blood pressure. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease. It is a medical condition that happens when the pressure of the blood in your arteries and other blood vessels is too high. The high pressure, if not controlled, can affect your heart and other major organs of your body, including your kidneys and brain.

The only way to know whether you have high blood pressure is to measure your blood pressure. You can lower your blood pressure with lifestyle changes or with medicine to reduce your risk for heart disease and heart attack.

Learn more about blood pressure. Unhealthy blood cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance made by the liver or found in certain foods. If we take in more cholesterol than the body can use, the extra cholesterol can build up in the walls of the arteries, including those of the heart.

This leads to narrowing of the arteries and can decrease the blood flow to the heart, brain, kidneys, and other parts of the body. High blood cholesterol usually has no signs or symptoms. The only way to know whether you have high cholesterol is to get your cholesterol checked.

Learn more about getting your cholesterol checked. Diabetes mellitus. Your body needs glucose sugar for energy. Diabetes causes sugar to build up in the blood.

The risk of death from heart disease for adults with diabetes is higher than for adults who do not have diabetes. Obesity is excess body fat. Obesity can lead to high blood pressure and diabetes as well as heart disease. Talk with your health care team about a plan to reduce your weight to a healthy level.

Learn more about healthy weight. When members of a family pass traits from one generation to another through genes, that process is called heredity. Genetic factors likely play some role in high blood pressure, heart disease, and other related conditions. However, it is also likely that people with a family history of heart disease share common environments and other factors that may increase their risk.

The risk for heart disease can increase even more when heredity combines with unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking cigarettes and eating an unhealthy diet. Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women.

Heart disease can happen at any age, but the risk goes up as you age. Heart disease and stroke can affect anyone, but some groups are more likely to have conditions that increase their risk for cardiovascular disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including African Americans, American Indians and Alaska Natives, and white people.

For Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and Hispanics, heart disease is second only to cancer. Skip directly to site content Skip directly to search.

Español Other Languages. Know Your Risk for Heart Disease. Minus Related Pages. You can take steps to lower your risk for heart disease by changing the factors you can control. What behaviors increase the risk of heart disease? Your lifestyle can increase your risk for heart disease.

Your risk of heart disease and stroke increases after menopause Read more. If you have a close relative who has experienced heart disease at an early age, you are at an increased risk.

People of African or South Asian heritage are more likely to have high blood pressure, diabetes or other risk factors. First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples are more likely to have high blood pressure and diabetes.

This puts them at greater risk of heart disease. Personal circumstances and environmental factors have an influence on your health. This includes things such as access to healthy food, safe drinking water, health services and social services.

Eating lots of veggies, cooking at home, limiting processed foods these are all habits that protect your health. Explore recipes, tips and more. Move more. Walk, rake leaves, play a sport. Find ways to be active in your daily life. Get ideas and tips from the experts.

Donate now. Risk and prevention. Lifestyle risk factors. Unhealthy diet. Physical inactivity. Unhealthy weight. More on lifestyle risks.