Age, family history, health conditions and behaviors can increase your risk for heart disease. While you can't control all risks, you can change some to protect your heart and enhance your overall health.
Risk factors you can't control include:
- Family history
- Gender (those assigned male gender at birth are more often affected)
- Older age
Health and lifestyle-related risk factors include:
- Diabetes
- Excess drinking
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- High-fat diet
- Inactivity
- Obesity
- Smoking
If you think you might be at risk for heart disease, it's important to be screened for early warning signs. Sentara offers comprehensive heart disease screenings tailored for you:
Routine heart checkups
Our heart doctors (cardiologists) perform comprehensive heart check-ups to identify your risk factors. Our complete assessment includes:
- Measuring blood pressure and body mass index
- Checking cholesterol levels
- Performing a blood glucose or A1C test to check for diabetes or prediabetes
Heart healthy lifestyle changes
The Ornish Lifestyle Medicine program helps you reduce the most common causes of heart disease. Research has shown that people using the program have experienced a variety of heart and health benefits, including:
- Stopping or reversing coronary heart disease
- Improving blood flow
- Reducing chest pain, blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides
Call 1-800-SENTARA (1-800-736-8272) to learn more.