HealthInfo Waitaha Canterbury
Preventing angina and heart attacks
Te whakawhāiti i taku tūraru mamae ā-poho
A lot of factors make you more likely to have angina or a heart attack. These factors also make you more likely to have other health problems such as stroke and dementia.
Heart risk assessments
Doing a heart risk assessment gives an estimate of how likely you are to have a heart attack or stroke within the next five years. It uses several known risk factors such as your age, ethnicity, family history and other heath conditions. You can do this yourself or with your GP or practice nurse.
The age you should start having heart risk assessments depends on your sex, ethnicity and other risk factors. See Heart risk assessment for details.
Make healthy choices
You have an important role to play in your heart health. While you cannot change some risk factors, you can change others. The choices you make every day do matter. Over time, what you eat, drink, do and how you live can improve your blood pressure and cholesterol and decrease your risk of heart disease and stroke.
The more healthy changes you make, the better it is for your heart health. Changes you can make include:
- if you smoke, stop smoking
- move more
- eat and drink for a healthy heart
- reach a healthy weight
- manage stress.
Keep other conditions under control
Be checked for and keep under control other conditions that affect your heart, such as high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease, high cholesterol and diabetes.
Take your medications
If you take medicines to reduce your risk, it's important to keep taking them for life. If you have side effects or are concerned about your medications, talk to your doctor or nurse before stopping them.
HealthInfo recommends the following pages
- Heart Foundation
- Lower your risk of heart disease
Steps you can take to reduce your risk of angina and heart attack.
- Guide to eating for a healthy heart
Advice on how to improve your heart health by changing what you eat.
- Lower your risk of heart disease
Written by HealthInfo clinical advisers. Last reviewed December 2021.
SourcesReview key: HIANG-25275
