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There are many risk factors for coronary heart disease. Your risk of coronary heart disease goes up with the number of risk factors you have and how serious they are. Some risk factors—such as high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol—can be changed through heart-healthy lifestyle changes. Other risk factors, such as your sex, older age, family history and genetics, and race and ethnicity, cannot be changed.

Factors that increase your risk for high blood pressure include unhealthy lifestyle habits such as eating too much sodium, drinking too much alcohol, and being physically inactive. Other risk factors include age, family history and genetics, race and ethnicity, and sex.

Long-term exposure to lung irritants—smoke, air pollution, chemical fumes, or dusts—that damage the lungs and the airways usually is the cause of COPD. A rare genetic condition called alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency can also cause the disease.

Your genes, or other causes such as medical conditions or medicines, can cause bleeding disorders. Sometimes a cause may not be known. Any problem that affects the function or number of clotting factors or platelets can lead to a bleeding disorder.

Marfan syndrome is a genetic condition caused by a mutation, or change, in one of your genes, called the fibrillin-1 (FBN1) gene. The FBN1 gene makes fibrillin-1, which is a protein that forms elastic fibers within connective tissue. Fibrillin-1 also affects levels of another protein that helps control how you grow.

Treatments for peripheral artery disease include lifestyle changes, anti-clotting medicines, statins to control cholesterol, and medicines to treat high blood pressure. When peripheral artery disease is advanced or does not respond to lifestyle changes and medicines, your doctor may recommend surgery or procedures such as bypass grafting, angioplasty and stent placement, and atherectomy.

Your doctor will diagnose peripheral artery disease based on your medical and family histories, a physical exam, and results from one or more tests: ankle-brachial index, Doppler ultrasound, treadmill test, magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA), arteriogram, and blood tests.

Treatments for carotid artery disease may include heart-healthy lifestyle changes, medicines, and medical procedures such as carotid endarterectomy and carotid artery angioplasty and stenting.

Heart valve disease occurs if one or more of your heart valves don't work well. The heart has four valves—the tricuspid, pulmonary, mitral, and aortic valves—that make sure blood flows in the right direction through your heart’s four chambers and to the rest of your body.

Age, race, gender, certain medical conditions—high blood pressure, diabetes, brain aneurysms, and heart diseases—smoking, and family history can raise your risk for a stroke.