Cardiac Risk Factors

Cardiac risk factors are the writings on the wall. By carefully reading them, we can identify the one who is at risk for a sudden cardiac arrest or AMI. If an American lives up to the age of 60, he or she has a 50% chance of being afflicted by cardiovascular disease and death.

There are several highly significant conventional cardiac risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cigarette smoking, high cholesterol, family history of coronary artery disease, overweight, and postmenopausal state that puts an individual at high risk for developing coronary artery disease and sudden cardiac death. The multiplicity of these cardiac risk factors in the same patient makes the incidence, as well as severity of the disease even higher. Based on the impact of the conventional cardiac risk factors on the pathogenesis and morbidity of CAD, they are sub-classified into major and minor risk factors: