Risk factors you cannot control

While there are some risk factors for heart disease and stroke that you can do something about, there are others that you cannot control. The five major risk factors that you cannot change are:

Age

• As you get older, your risk of heart disease increases.
• Although strokes can occur at any age, most strokes occur in people over 65.

Gender

• Men over the age of 55 and postmenopausal women are at greater risk of heart disease.
• Until women reach menopause they have a lower risk of stroke than men.

Family history

• Your risk of heart disease is increased if close family members – parents, siblings or children – developed heart disease before age 55 or, in the case of female relatives, before menopause.
• Your risk of stroke is increased if close family members – parents, siblings or children – had a stroke before age 65.

Ethnicity

• First Nations people and those of African or South Asian descent are more likely to have high blood pressure and diabetes, and therefore are at greater risk of heart disease and stroke than the general population.

Prior stroke or TIA (transient ischemic attack)

• If you've had a previous stroke or a TIA, which is also known as a mini-stroke, your risk of stroke increases.

Last reviewed August 2008.