Health Topic

How to Prevent Heart Disease

Heart disease is the leading cause of the death in the U.S, and is a major cause of disability. There are many heart disease risk factors that you can change.

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Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About How to Prevent Heart Disease

Heart disease is the leading cause of the death in the United States. It is also a major cause of disability. But you can take steps to improve your health and help prevent heart disease. The first step is understanding your risk of heart disease. Your risk depends on many factors, some of which are changeable and others that are not. Learning about them and working on the things that you can change can lower your risk of heart disease.

There are some risk factors for heart disease that you cannot change:

  • Your age. Your risk of heart disease increases as you get older. The risk is higher in: Men age 45 and older
  • Women age 55 and older
  • The hormone estrogen provides women some protection against heart disease
  • Diabetes raises the risk of heart disease more in women than in men.
  • African Americans are more likely than Whites to die of heart disease, while Hispanic Americans are less likely to die of it
  • Asian Americans as a group have lower rates of heart disease than other groups, but South Asian Americans have higher rates
  • Your father or brother was diagnosed before age 55
  • Your mother or sister was diagnosed before age 65

There are many heart disease risk factors that you can change. If you make these changes, you don't just help protect your heart. You can also improve your overall health and well-being.

You may have a lot of changes to make. If you need to, you can make the changes gradually, one at a time. What's most important is that you make them. Depending on your lifestyle, these changes could include:

  • Controlling your blood pressure. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease. It is important to get your blood pressure checked regularly - at least once a year for most adults, and more often if you have high blood pressure. You can also take steps, including lifestyle changes, to prevent or control high blood pressure.
  • Keeping your cholesterol and triglyceride levels under control: High levels of cholesterol can clog your arteries and raise your risk of coronary artery disease and heart attack. Lifestyle changes and medicines (if needed) can lower your cholesterol.
  • Triglycerides are another type of fat in the blood. High levels of triglyceride may also raise the risk of coronary artery disease, especially in women.
  • Have no more than 2 drinks per day if you are a man.
  • Have no more than 1 drink per day if you are a woman.
  • If you do not smoke, don't start.
  • If you do smoke, quitting will lower your risk of heart disease. You can talk with your health care provider for help in finding the best way for you to quit.
  • If you are an adult, try to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.
  • Make sure that you have good sleep habits, such as keeping a regular sleep schedule and creating a good sleeping environment in your bedroom.
  • If you have frequent sleep problems, contact your health care provider. One problem, sleep apnea, causes people to briefly stop breathing many times during sleep. This interferes with your ability to get a good rest and can raise your risk of heart disease. If you think you might have sleep apnea, ask your provider about having a sleep study. And if you do have sleep apnea, make sure that you get treatment for it.

It sits within Blood, Heart and Circulation and Wellness and Lifestyle.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on How to Prevent Heart Disease

8 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

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Diagnosis and Tests

Prevention and Risk Factors

Related Issues

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Heart Diseases. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for How to Prevent Heart Disease, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.