Risk factors for “heart and blood vessel disease”

“Coronary artery disease” is mostly caused by fat and tissue building up in the walls of the blood vessels. The inner lining of the vessel thickens and the vessel narrows, so less oxygen-carrying blood can flow through. As a result, the heart muscle does not receive enough blood, leading to myocardial ischaemia, which causes chest pain.

If a blood vessel becomes blocked suddenly, usually because a fatty plaque on the inner vessel wall ruptures and forms a blood clot, it can cause an acute heart attack (myocardial infarction), leading to various complications or sudden death.

Risk factors for coronary artery disease

Factors that increase the risk of coronary artery disease include:

• Family history: a family member has heart or blood vessel disease
• Age: blood vessels deteriorate with age, making the disease more likely
• Diet and body weight: eating a high-fat diet, letting your weight keep rising and a higher body mass index all increase the risk of heart and blood vessel disease
• Lack of exercise: data show that physical inactivity or not exercising increases the risk of heart and blood vessel disease by about 1.5 times
• Existing conditions: such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and diabetes
• Stress: a low mood and long-term chronic stress are factors that increase risk
• Smoking: this includes regular smokers, non-smokers exposed to other people's smoke, and people who smoked for a long time and quit only recently. Data show that smokers have about 2.4 times the risk of ischaemic heart disease compared with non-smokers

Symptoms of coronary artery disease

People with a partially blocked coronary artery may have no symptoms. In people with a more severely blocked artery, the most common symptom is severe, unbearable chest pain that feels like a heavy weight pressing on the centre of the chest, which may spread up to the jaw or down the left arm.

If you have severe or sudden chest pain, go to the nearest hospital or call the emergency medical hotline 1669 (in Thailand) immediately.

Preventing coronary artery disease

The best way to prevent coronary artery disease is to change the health behaviours that may be risk factors, as follows:

• Adjust your eating habits: eat according to the energy you use each day so that your body's energy stays in balance
• Exercise regularly: getting enough movement can include walking around at work, doing housework, cooking, carrying light items, activity while travelling in daily life, or leisure activities
• Stop smoking: just about 20 minutes after stopping smoking, blood pressure begins to fall towards normal levels
• Reduce stress: find activities that help you manage stress, such as exercise, yoga or meditation

Assess your risk before symptoms appear

Because we only have one heart, BAAC offers health checkup programmes to assess the risk of coronary artery disease in people who do not yet have symptoms, and to help plan prevention to lower the chance of developing the disease.