Family History Of Heart Attacks: Does This Increase The Risk For Heart Disease? - Dr. Smolens

Dr. Smolens:

If you have a family history of heart disease or heart attacks, it does not guarantee that you will or won’t have heart disease. If you look back at that family member’s risk factor profile and see if there’s anything that you can modify, that’s great, and don’t follow in their footsteps. However, unfortunately sometimes genetics plays a very strong role and we can’t undo some of our genetic risk factors.

For those of you who have a strong family history of heart disease, it’s all that much more important for you to be an advocate for yourself. That’s already one strike against you in terms of risk factors that you can’t alter. So it’s all that much more important for you to look at that list of risk factors that you can alter, in terms of lifestyle modification, that you should pay heed to and correct as much as you can.

About Dr. Smolens, M.D.:
Board Certified Cardiothoracic Surgeon Iva Smolens, M.D., serves as medical director of the Women's Heart Center at Banner Heart Hospital in Mesa, Arizona. She currently serves on the American Heart Association’s Board of Directors for the Phoenix metropolitan area.

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Tags

• Heart Attack
• Heart Disease