CNN – Before a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular disease hit, there are almost always warning signs, according to a new study.
Those warning signs are well-known cardiovascular disease risk factors, but more can still be done to reduce cases of heart disease, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
For this study, researchers analyzed data from two groups: more than 600,000 cases of cardiovascular disease in South Korea and another 1,000 cases in the United States.
Researchers analyzed what percentage of those cases were preceded by traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including blood pressure levels, blood sugar, cholesterol and smoking.
In more than 99% of cases of cardiovascular disease, heart failure or stroke, the patient had at least one of the risk factors before the incident occurred, according to the data.
“Even ‘mild’ elevations of these 4 factors should be addressed with lifestyle treatments or medications,” said Dr. Philip Greenland, one of the study’s lead authors, in an email.
He is also a professor of preventive medicine and the Harry W. Dingman Professor of Cardiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
Beyond diagnoses
The new study is particularly important because it reinforces that doctors and patients can manage the risk factors for almost all cases of heart disease, said Dr. Susan Cheng, professor and vice chair of research affairs in the department of cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was not involved in the research.
Some research has suggested that a growing number of cardiovascular disease cases have no traditional indicators of risk beforehand …
