What Is A Cardiovascular Risk Assessment?
The American Heart Association has guidelines and recommendations for that can help you estimate your risk of developing cardiovascular (heart) disease. Risk assessment is extremely important since it shows if one is at a high risk of cardiovascular disease. It also helps you identify things to do to lower the risk of developing heart disease. Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading risk factors for heart attack. And, a heart attack is the number one cause of death for men and women in the U.S. In this blog post, Statcare Urgent Care doctors will help you understand how to gauge your cardiovascular risk.
Are you wondering what your heart attack risk is? Doctors can do a risk assessment to determine the likelihood of you developing cardiovascular disease, heart attack or stroke in the future. Medical professionals calculate risk scores using a number of factors. Some of the factors that they look at include age, gender, race, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and diabetes. Alcohol use and smoking status also cotirnute to heart attack risk, so they are included, as well. Using these risk factors, doctors can estimate your risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years.
If you are between the ages of 20-79, then you should have doctors calculate your calculate their 10-year risk for cardiovascular disease. This can help you identify changes that you can make to reduce the change of developing heart disease.
Where Can I Get A Cardiovascular Risk Assessment?
Stop by any of our clinics to get your yearly labs. Once we have the lab results, we will be able to calculate your 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular risk accurately. We can discuss the implications of the findings and can also weigh the risk and benefits of various treatments and lifestyle changes to help reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
Note: For cholesterol levels to be accurate, you must fast for 8-12 hours before the test. Drinking water is allowed.
Source: AHA
