February is American Heart Month, a time that provides an opportunity to empower you to be more mindful of your heart health, know your cardiovascular risk and take action to live longer, healthier lives. Especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to know your risk of heart disease.
What are the Key Risk Factors of Heart Disease?
According to the CDC, about half of all Americans have at least 1 of 3 key risk factors for heart disease: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking. Other risk factors include:*
- Age
- Family History
- Gender
- Race
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Physical Inactivity
Know Your Risk
The first step in reducing risk for heart disease is to know your risk levels by getting tested. Heart Health testing by BioReference provides the numbers and sizes of lipoprotein particles, and includes measures of inflammatory markers and other independent risk factors to provide a complete picture of cardiovascular risk. Based on the specific outcomes of the test, your healthcare provider may recommend medications to lower certain risk factors and/or suggest lifestyle modifications through physical activity, healthy eating and smoking cessation. Click here for more information about heart health testing services.
COVID-19 and Heart Disease
According to the CDC, having any of the following heart conditions increases your risk of severe illness from COVID-19:**
- Heart failure
- Coronary artery disease
- Cardiomyopathies
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Other cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease, such as hypertension (high blood pressure) or stroke
If you have of any of these conditions, it is advised by the CDC to take your medicines as prescribed and follow your healthcare provider’s recommendations for diet and exercise while maintaining social distancing.
This February, make the commitment to take action towards living a heart-healthier lifestyle and schedule a (telehealth) appointment with your healthcare provider to discuss appropriate diagnostic testing.
If you are a healthcare provider, click here to begin ordering Heart Health and other diagnostic tests for your patients from BioReference today.
Sources:
*https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/risk_factors.htm
