Not necessarily. Your heart disease risk is about twice as great if your father or mother had a cardiac event--like a heart attack, stroke, or heart surgery--before age 55 or 65, respectively.
But only about 10% of heart disease cases are solely due to genes--the rest are based on your age, lifestyle issues (such as whether you smoke and how physically active you are), and risk factors like being overweight, high blood pressure, and cholesterol. Compare your parents' risk factors with yours.
If your dad had a heart attack at 42 but he smoked a pack a day--and you don't--your heart disease risk is still higher than average, but not as great as it would be if you smoked cigarettes, too. Make sure your doctor knows about your family history. She may take a different treatment approach to make sure your heart is healthy--and stays that way over time.
Read Heart Health
Sources: Michael Miller, MD, director, Center for Preventive Cardiology,University of Maryland Medical Center
Laurence Sperling, MD, associate professor, medicine, medical director, preventive cardiology, Emory University School of Medicine
Sekar Kathiresan, MD, research scientist, Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital
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