Cardiovascular Risk Factors: What Raises Your Risk, and What a Risk Assessment Involves
October 8, 2026 · 2 min read
Medically reviewed by the physicians of Gilead Heart & Vascular · Last reviewed: 2026-10-08
A cardiovascular risk assessment combines your personal and family history with blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar testing to estimate your likelihood of a future cardiac event.
The Major Risk Factors for Heart Disease
Several well-established factors increase the likelihood of developing heart disease: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or prediabetes, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, and a family history of early heart disease. Age and biological sex also play a role, with risk generally increasing over time.
Factors You Can and Can't Change
Some risk factors, like family history and age, aren't within your control. Others, including blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, weight, and smoking status, can often be improved meaningfully through lifestyle changes, medication, or a combination of both.
What a Cardiovascular Risk Assessment Includes
A risk assessment typically combines your personal and family medical history with blood pressure measurement, blood work (including cholesterol and blood sugar), and sometimes additional testing like a coronary calcium score. Your doctor may also use a standardized risk calculator to estimate your likelihood of a cardiac event over the next several years.
What Happens With the Results
Depending on your results, your doctor might recommend lifestyle changes, medication to manage a specific risk factor, more frequent monitoring, or further diagnostic testing. The goal of a risk assessment isn't to alarm you; it's to give you and your doctor a clear, evidence-based starting point for a plan.
Risk Calculators Are a Starting Point, Not a Verdict
Standardized risk calculators estimate your chance of a cardiac event over the next several years using population-level data, which makes them useful but imperfect. They don't always capture every relevant detail about you, a strong family history, for instance, or certain lab values. Your physician uses the calculator as one input among several, not as the final word on your personal risk.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the biggest risk factors for heart disease?
High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, and family history are the most established risk factors.
Can I lower my cardiovascular risk?
Yes. Blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, weight, and smoking status can often be improved meaningfully through lifestyle changes, medication, or both.
What does a risk assessment involve?
It typically combines your medical history with blood pressure measurement, blood work, and sometimes additional testing like a coronary calcium score.
Related Reading
- Preventive Cardiology
- High Blood Pressure and Heart Disease
- Cholesterol and the Heart
- Cholesterol Doctor
Want to be seen soon and skip the wait at a place close to home? Gilead Heart & Vascular offers full cardiovascular risk assessments at our Arizona locations, so you leave your visit with an actual plan, not just a list of numbers.
Have a question about your heart health?
Talk it through with your doctor at any Gilead Heart & Vascular location.