How to assess Cardiovascular Disease Risks?

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) generally refers to conditions that involve narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to a heart attack, chest pain (angina) or stroke.

Why you need to know your risk factors?

The more risk factors you have the greater the likelihood you have to develop CVD, unless you take action to modify your risk factors.

What are the CVD Modifiable Risk Factors?

1. Physical inactivity: Being active is beneficial for the health of your blood vessels.

All you need is to do is:

• 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) of moderate physical activity every week
  • or an hour of vigorous physical activity every day
• Tobacco: You need to know thatsmoking damages:
  • The lining of your blood vessels
  • Increases fatty deposits in the arteries
  • Raises LDL (bad) cholesterol
  • Reduces HDL (good) cholesterol
  • And the Nicotine accelerates the heart rate and raises blood pressure
• Diet: A diet high in saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. On the other hand, eating a diet high in fresh fruits and vegetables protects your heart
• Diabetes: A non-controlled diabetes increases 2 to 4 times your risk of developing cardiovascular disease
• Hypertension: High blood pressure stresses your body’s blood vessels, causing them to clog or weaken which can lead to narrowing of the blood vessels making them more likely to block from blood clots

Obesity: Intra-abdominal fat affects your blood pressure & your blood lipid levels and interferes with your ability to use insulin effectively which may lead to diabetes, a risk factor of cardiovascular disease