New research has indicated that people who go on to suffer a heart attack tend to show signs in at least one of four ways.
When it comes to your overall wellbeing, there are a lot of things to consider: am I getting enough sleep, enough good food, enough exercise?
While these are important metrics to check your health and fitness against, other things in your life can apparently indicate whether you are likely to develop health issues like cardiovascular diseases.
A new study led by Northwestern Medicine and Yonsei University in South Korea came to the conclusion that more than 99 percent of people who went on to suffer a heart attack, stroke, or heart failure had at least one 'risk factor' above optimal level beforehand.
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The study - published in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology - analyzed health records of over 10 years for more than nine million adults in South Korea and nearly 7,000 people in the US.
It ultimately dismissed the idea that these serious health issues often strike people without warning.
The 'risk factors' that are above optimal levels that the majority of the time lead to a cardiac event are high blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar or a history of smoking.
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According to the researchers, these are areas people should consider addressing to improve their heart health.
Senior author Dr Philip Greenland, professor of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said: “We think the study shows very convincingly that exposure to one or more non-optimal risk factors before these cardiovascular outcomes is nearly 100 percent.
“The goal now is to work harder on finding ways to control these modifiable risk factors rather than to get off track in pursuing other factors that are not easily treatable and not causal.”
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The study also broke down what would be considered 'non-optimal' levels:
• Blood pressure ≥120/80 mm Hg or on treatment
• Total cholesterol ≥200 mg/dL or on treatment
• Fasting glucose ≥100 mg/dL, diagnosis of diabetes or on treatment
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• Past or current tobacco use
The results proved to be considerably clear, according to the researchers.
More than 99 percent of people who went on to suffer these health issues would have at least one non-optimal risk factor before their event. Meanwhile, over 93 percent had two or more risk factors.
They also noted that high blood pressure, or hypertension, was the main offender, affecting over 95 percent of patients in South Korea and more than 93 percent in the US.
Gerrard Kaonga