Recent studies have revealed that individuals who experience a heart attack often display one or more of four specific indicators.
When evaluating your overall health, there are numerous aspects to consider, such as the amount of sleep you get, the quality of your diet, and your level of physical activity.
While these are crucial benchmarks for assessing health and fitness, other factors in your life may signal the potential development of health issues, including cardiovascular diseases.
A comprehensive study conducted by Northwestern Medicine and Yonsei University in South Korea discovered that over 99 percent of individuals who later suffered a heart attack, stroke, or heart failure had at least one risk factor above the optimal level prior to the incident.
The research involved analyzing over a decade’s worth of health records from more than nine million adults in South Korea and nearly 7,000 individuals in the United States.
This study ultimately refutes the notion that such serious health issues occur unexpectedly and without warning.
The primary risk factors that often precede a cardiac event include elevated blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose levels, or a history of smoking.
The researchers emphasize that these are areas people should focus on to enhance their heart health.
Dr. Philip Greenland, a senior author and professor of cardiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, stated, “We think the study shows very convincingly that exposure to one or more nonoptimal 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.”
The study also outlined what qualifies as ‘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
• Past or current tobacco use
According to the researchers, the findings were undeniably clear.
More than 99 percent of individuals who encountered these health problems had at least one non-optimal risk factor before the event, with over 93 percent having two or more risk factors.
They also identified high blood pressure, or hypertension, as the leading culprit, impacting over 95 percent of patients in South Korea and more than 93 percent in the United States.