Monday, January 24, 2011

Bad News if Your Parent Had a Heart Attack

We know there are certain things that put us at risk for heart disease. These are things like smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure. We also know that not smoking cigarettes, exercising a regular basis and eating a healthy diet can help prevent heart disease. But there may be no greater factor for increasing the risk of heart attack than having parents who have suffered heart attacks. According to a new study called the Interheart report, having a parental history of heart attack can increase a person's risk of suffering their own a heart attack by an average of 74%. They also found that when parents had heart attacks at younger ages the risk of a child having a heart attack increased. For instance if a parent had a heart attack after the age of 50, it increased the child's risk of heart attack by 67%. But if they had a heart attack when they were younger than 50 the risk increased by 136%. It is still very hard to tell which has a greater effect a person's genes or their lifestyle but there is no doubt that people who have parents who have had heart attacks need to consider this carefully.

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