Does Heart Disease Run in Your Family?
Take time to collect information about your family health history of heart disease, and share this information with your doctor and other family members. Your doctor can help you take steps to lower your chances of getting heart disease.
Collect and Share Your Family Health History of Heart Disease
Each year in the United States, over 610,000 people die from heart disease. Some medical conditions, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes, and lifestyle factors, such as an unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, and smoking, can make you more likely to develop heart disease. In addition, having close blood relatives with heart disease can make you more likely to get heart disease.
Recent data suggest that more than 1.3 million people (1 in 250) in the United States have FH and that many of them are undertreated, even when they know they have high cholesterol.
If you have a family health history of heart disease, collect information on your relatives with heart disease, including what age they were diagnosed. This is especially important if you have a parent, brother, or sister with heart disease. Share this information with your doctor so you can work together on steps to lower your chances of getting heart disease.
These steps can include
- eating a healthy diet,
- being physically active,
- maintaining a healthy weight,
- not smoking,
- limiting your alcohol use,
- checking your cholesterol,
- controlling your blood pressure,
- managing your diabetes, if you have it,
- having screening tests done that your doctor recommends, and
- taking medication if needed to treat high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes.
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