Cardiovascular risk
The sum of factors that cannot be felt today and that determine the chance of a cardiac event in the coming years.
When to seek care
There is no emergency here - there is opportunity. Book an assessment if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a smoking history, obesity, or a first-degree relative who had a heart attack or died suddenly at a young age. Also before starting intense exercise after years of inactivity.
What it feels like
- None, by definition
- Diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure already diagnosed
- Current smoking
- Family history of heart attack before age 55
Cardiovascular risk is not a condition, it is a probability. It is calculated from age, sex, blood pressure, lipids, glucose, smoking, and family history, and its value is that it turns a list of loose numbers into a decision.
That calculation is what sets treatment intensity. The same cholesterol figure calls for different action in a forty-year-old with no other factors than in a sixty-year-old with diabetes and hypertension.
The advantage of measuring it early is that nearly every factor is modifiable. This is the part of cardiology where the patient has the most room to act.