Risk factors for heart disease

What are the important risk factors for heart disease?

In general, when we talk about risk factors for heart disease, we tend to think about the most common variety of heart disease in adults – coronary artery disease. Risk factors for heart disease can be divided into modifiable and non modifiable ones. The non modifiable ones are age, gender, ethnicity and family history. The risk of coronary artery disease increases as age advances. So also, the risk is more in males compared to premenopausal females. A strong family history of premature heart disease is an important risk factor. Some races are more prone to coronary artery disease than others. Obviously, all these risk factors cannot be modified.