Heart disease may run in families, but so can prevention

If you have a family health history of heart disease, you are more likely to develop heart disease. Different types of heart disease and related conditions, like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, can run in families.

Therefore, discussing your family’s history with your primary care provider is important to create a clear picture of your family’s heart health, including:

• What you know about your parents, sisters, brothers, children, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts and uncles’ health.
• Family history on your mother’s and father’s sides of the family.
• Which relatives have had heart disease, related conditions or procedures and the age at which they were diagnosed or treated.
• Include the age and cause of death for relatives.
• Regularly update your family health history and alert your provider to any new diagnosis, condition or procedure.
• If your father, mother, brother or sister had a heart attack before age 50, your risk of heart disease, heart attack and stroke might be increased.

Knowing your family’s history is essential for heart disease screening, as conditions like hypertension, arrhythmias, high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, heart failure and even congenital heart defects often run in families.

This knowledge helps your cardiologist determine your risk of cardiovascular disease, allowing for more personalized and effective prevention strategies.