Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the medical term for diseases of the arteries. In these conditions there is narrowing of the arteries that take blood to critical parts of the body such as the heart, brain and the legs. The narrowing reduces the amount of blood that can reach those areas.

CVD of the different areas has specific names: 

Coronary heart disease (CHD)	Angina, heart attacks
Cerebrovascular disease	Mini-stroke (transient ischaemic attack or "TIA"), stroke (cerebrovascular event or "CVE")
Legs

What are the risk factors?

There are 2 sorts of risk factors:

Risk factors that you cannot change:	Risk factors that you can do something about:
Your age  The gender you were born with  Your genes  Your ethnicity  Your family history	Smoking  Diet  Alcohol intake  High weight (especially if associated with a large waistline)  Low physical activity  High blood fats – cholesterol and triglyceride  High blood pressure  Type 2 diabetes

What is my risk?

It can be difficult to work out your risk of CVD as there are so many risk factors and your risk is due to the combination of all of them. 

Health care professionals often use “risk calculators” which will work out your risk of having CVD over the next ten years. The “score” generated by the "risk calculator" helps decide what sort of intervention is most appropriate for you. The most common "risk calculator" used in the UK is called “QRISK”. 

The "risk calculators" are aimed at healthcare professionals as they require quite a lot of medical data. However, there is a relatively simple tool here that you can use to calculate your “heart age” which gives you an idea of how healthy your heart is.

It’s worth bearing in mind that whatever your "risk score" or "heart age", eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, doing plenty of activity, not smoking and limiting alcohol intake will minimise your risk of CVD and, most importantly, make you feel better, both physically and mentally. 

Preventing CVD

There are things that you can do to prevent CVD:  

Giving up smoking	This can be very hard but is extremely important as smoking is such a major risk factor for CVD and many other diseases. Many GP practices have programmes to support people to stop smoking.
Healthy eating	Just making changes to what you eat can help reduce your risk of CVD. In addition, eating a healthy diet can help with weight management as well as bringing down your blood fats and blood pressure.
Alcohol intake	Sticking to no more than the recommended limits  of 14 units per week significantly reduces your risk of CVD.
Losing weight	Although not everyone at risk of CVD is overweight, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is an extremely effective way of reducing CVD as well as improving blood pressure, blood fats and diabetes control. In addition, some people can come off medications for blood pressure, blood fats and diabetes if they manage to lose weight. Your healthcare team will support you in your journey with weight management.
Physical activity	In addition to reducing your risk of CVD, increasing your physical activity can help with weight management, control of blood pressure, blood fats and diabetes. Most importantly of all, increasing physical fitness improves mental health, making people feel better in themselves.
Reducing high blood fats	Your healthcare professional will talk to you about your targets for blood fats. Eating a healthy diet is critical to achieve good levels of cholesterol and triglyceride. However, many people also need medication to reach their blood fat goals.
Lowering high blood pressure	Your healthcare professional will talk to you about your targets for blood pressure. Eating a healthy diet can make a huge difference to blood pressure. However, many people also need medication to control blood pressure.
Type 2 diabetes	Making sure you have good blood sugar levels significantly reduces the risk of CVD. This is very important as soon as diabetes is diagnosed as delay in blood sugar control is known to increase the risk of CVD.