How Healthy Is Your Heart? Take This Quiz To Find Out

We’ve all questioned the trustworthiness of our ticker from time to time. It’d be hard not to! After all, heart disease is the leading cause of death.

You can’t change your past or necessarily control your future. But knowing your personal risk of heart disease — or to be more precise, your risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) — can help you make the best possible choices for your heart health going forward.

Take the quiz

Grab a pencil and answer the following questions. Don’t worry: There are no right or wrong answers. Just opportunities to learn!

• Do you have high blood pressure (hypertension)?
• What is your biological sex?
• How old are you?
• Does your biological family have a history of heart disease?
• Do you have high cholesterol (hyperlipidemia)?
• Do you smoke?
• How active are you?
• What do your meals look like?
• Do you have diabetes?
• How stressed are you, and how well do you cope?

You’re more than a score

Now that you’ve taken the quiz, you might be wondering, what’s your score? But you’re more than a number — and assessing heart disease risk is complicated.

Sure, numbers are valuable. And there are lots of resources out there that treat heart disease risk as a numbers game. But it’s also important to qualify risk — to describe what it actually looks like in practice. Let’s use your answers to do just that.

Risk 1: High blood pressure

According to cardiologist Ashish Sarraju, MD, hypertension strains the heart and increases wear and tear on blood vessels, making blockages more likely.

While it’s rarer, people with chronic low blood pressure (hypotension) are also at risk for heart disease. It’s a Goldilocks thing — you want your blood pressure to be in the “just right” range (120/80 mm Hg). Not too high, not too low.

Risk 2: Biological sex

Men have a higher risk of heart disease than women do. But women’s risk goes up during and after menopause.

Risk 3: Age

The older you get, the more likely you are to develop heart disease. According to the National Institute on Aging, your risk goes up significantly at age 65.

“The longer you live, the more likely you are to develop new risk factors or have existing risk factors get worse,” Dr. Sarraju says.

Here’s an example: The hormone fluctuations that come with aging reduce the flexibility of your arteries. Over time, this normal, natural process can lead to a hardening of the arteries called atherosclerosis.

The point? Your heart doesn’t work in isolation. It’s aging just like the rest of you — and responding to the many changes occurring in your body.

Risk 4: Family history

Your genetic (inherited) make-up may increase your chances of developing heart disease.

“Don’t just note the branches of your biological family tree that include heart disease,” Dr. Sarraju recommends. “Also note how closely you’re related to those people, and how old they were when they developed heart disease.”

Let your providers know if you have relatives who developed heart disease before the age of 50 or had high cholesterol at a young age. It could be a sign of an inherited condition called familial hypercholesterolemia (FH).

Dr. Sarraju says an early FH diagnosis can be life-changing — in a good way. Preventive treatment may significantly reduce your risk of heart disease.

Risk 5: High cholesterol

High cholesterol (hyperlipidemia) can contribute to the build-up of plaques in your bloodstream. Those plaques can clog the blood vessels leading to your heart, narrowing them and potentially blocking blood flow.

Your cholesterol can be high for many reasons, some of which (like your diet) are in your power to change. But high cholesterol can also be hereditary.

Not sure if you have high cholesterol? Contact a provider and tell them you’d like to get a lipid panel done. If your “bad” LDL cholesterol is too high, your provider may prescribe a statin to lower it.

Risk 6: Smoking

Smoking generally — and smoking nicotine specifically — can do a real number on your heart. Dr. Sarraju describes it as the most important risk factor for heart disease that you can change.

But why? Nicotine speeds up the heart and narrows the arteries, making it harder for enough blood to get through. That’s why nicotine replacement therapies like patches and gummies are only intended for short-term use.

If you’re ready to quit smoking, speak to a provider. They’ll be happy to help you through the process.

Risk 7: Lack of physical activity

All exercise is helpful for preventing heart disease, but (as the name suggests) cardio workouts are an extra great way to reduce heart disease risk.

Cardio improves your circulation and increases the amount of oxygen in your blood. Over time, cardiovascular exercise can also reduce both your blood pressure and heart rate. It may even help raise your “good” HDL cholesterol and reduce the earlier-mentioned “bad” LDL cholesterol.

Dr. Sarraju recommends 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise five times a week. But every little bit helps. Do what you can, as often as you can, to get started. Then, slowly build up to a five-day-a-week routine.

If you have a health condition, injury or disability that makes physical activity tough, let your provider know. They can help you figure out a safe and sustainable exercise plan. Remember: Any activity is good activity.

Risk 8: Diet

When it comes to heart health, the gold-standard eating plan is the Mediterranean diet. And unlike fad diets, the Mediterranean diet is sustainable in the long term, which is key to keeping your heart healthy as you get older.

According to Dr. Sarraju, it’s best to limit eating the following types of food:

• Red meat and organ meat
• Refined grains (as opposed to whole grains)
• Added sugars and excessive salt
• Highly processed and fast foods
• Tropical oils (as opposed to liquid plant oils like olive oil)
• Alcohol

Risk 9: Diabetes

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people living with diabetes are two times more likely to develop heart disease than people who don’t have diabetes.

Those are scary statistics. But here’s the thing: The lifestyle changes doctors recommend for managing diabetes also improve heart health. So, you’ll be helping yourself twice over.

Risk 10: Stress

“Chronic stress can damage our heart both directly and indirectly,” Dr. Sarraju reports.

When we’re under stress for long periods of time, our cortisol levels go up and stay up, causing inflammation. Chronic inflammation is linked to heart disease, as well as weight gain and blood sugar issues.

Stress also hurts our heart indirectly. That’s because many of us cope with stress in unhealthy ways. Smoking, spending the day in bed or snacking on fast food might make you feel better in the short term. But those coping strategies actually increase our cortisol levels in the long term, creating a vicious cycle.

If your stress levels feel unsustainable or unhealthy, talk to a provider. They can refer you to mental health professionals who can teach you healthy ways to cope with stress.

Final thoughts

You’ve probably noticed there’s only so much you can do to change your heart disease risk profile. You can’t trade in your relatives’ medical histories for new ones or drink from the fountain of youth. But there are some things you can change. And when you make heart-healthy choices, you tip the scale ever-so-slightly back in your favor.

Not sure how to get started? Dr. Sarraju recommends speaking with a provider. They’ll help you play the best possible hand you can with the cards you’ve been dealt.