Assessing Your Cardiac Risk

Heart disease and heart attacks can strike at any age, so it’s never too early to begin thinking about your heart health and your risk of developing heart disease. A great way to determine your level of risk is taking the American Heart Association’s online heart risk assessment calculator. If you are between the ages of 40 and 79, and have never had a heart attack, we recommend you use this calculator and discuss your results with your doctor.

Knowing your risk factors

There are a number of health-related factors that determine your level of risk, and knowing where you stand is the first important step to preventing heart disease. Fortunately, many of the risk factors are within your control and can be addressed and even reduced by lifestyle changes, such as:

• High blood pressure
• High low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol
• Diabetes
• Smoking and secondhand smoke exposure
• Obesity
• Unhealthy diet
• Physical inactivity

Other risk factors, such as age, race, gender and family history are beyond our control, but they can also be factored into effective treatments and preventive measures.

How it can help you be more heart healthy

The information provided by this assessment tool can be used by you and your health care provider to assess your chances of developing heart disease over the next 10 years, and take measures to decrease your risk. While it cannot and should not be used as a diagnostic tool, the calculator does use your information to estimate your heart disease risk score as a percentage – the higher the percentage, the greater your chances of significant heart problems now and in the future. Moreover, the AHA heart risk calculator suggests actions you can take to improve your risk score.

Preventing heart disease is always important. So get to know your heart disease risk score early and take the online heart risk assessment now.

Begin Heart Risk Assessment