To safeguard your cardiovascular health, you must know your heart risks and work hard to minimize them. According to health experts, the greater the number of risk factors and the greater the severity of each factor, the higher the person’s overall risk of developing heart disease. To prevent heart attacks and other problems, it’s important to identify and manage risks as early as possible.

Common heart risks include age, family history, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and diabetes. There are also several lifestyle factors related to weight, smoking and stress that contribute to heart disease risk over time.

The good news is that once you know your heart risks, you can start taking positive steps to promote and restore cardiovascular health.