Although the term cardiovascular disease refers to a disorder of the cardiovascular system, it is usually associated with atherosclerosis, also known as arterial disease. It is considered the leading cause of deaths in the world, taking 17.1 million lives a year. There are only a few factors that are non-modifiable, these being the persons age, gender, family history and their race and ethnicity. Although there are non-modifiable risk factors, there are multiple multiple risk factors that are modifiable that anyone can use to prevent getting any type of cardiovascular disease. These people just need to have the motivation to be able to change themselves and their lifestyles in order to better themselves and their cardiovascular system all together.
There are four non-modifiable risk factors when it comes to cardiovascular diseases. The first being age. Simply getting old is a high risk factor of cardiovascular disease, the risk or heart diseases increase every decade after the age of 55. A persons gender is also important; a man has a greater chance of getting a heart disease than a pre-menopausal woman. Once past menopause though, a woman's risk is just as high as a man's. Another risk factor is a persons family history. Once a person knows that their family history has some type of heart disease in it, it indicates that their risks are higher. If a first-degree blood relative has had a coronary heart disease or stroke before the age of 55 years old for a male relative, or 65 years old for a female relative, the persons risks increases. The last non-modifiable risk factor is a persons race and ethnicity. It plays a role because it has been proven that people with African or Asian ethnicity are at higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases than any other racial group.
There are a lot more modifiable risks than non-modifiable risks for cardiovascular diseases. The first being hypertension, which is also known