Staying Healthy for Life

While heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., there are many things you can do to reduce your risk. A smart first step is to understand and reduce your risk factors. The two types of risk factors include:

• Factors You Cannot Control: age, family history, gender, and race
• Factors You Can Control: maintaining cholesterol, diet & weight and high blood pressure, and stopping smoking

To help patients assess their risk factors and to give them tools to understand and control them, MedStar Washington Hospital Center offers many online resources, including inactive web tools, such as quizzes and tests, tips on reducing risk habits, and other information to help patients maintain healthy heart behaviors.

Click below to learn more about how to:

• Rate your heart risk
• Understand the dangers of smoking
• Quit smoking
• Understand nutrition
• Cook for your heart
• Enjoy low fat snacks
• Understand food labels
• Take the fat test