Chapter 14

Lecture Notes

On this slide you can see the contributing cardiovascular disease risk factors, and remember these are less strongly, but still related to the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. And the first one is stress, and stress is something that's present in everyone's life, but how we deal with it differs from person to person. There's a great deal that we still need to learn about stress and its relationship with cardiovascular disease, but it might increase blood pressure, and another way stress might contribute to cardiovascular disease is by increasing the likelihood of other negative health behaviors. So for example, when someone gets stressed, if they choose to smoke or be inactive or sedentary, that's how stress potentially could contribute to cardiovascular disease, and so there's still much we need to learn, but we do know that stress is a contributing risk factor. Similarly, alcohol use, and specifically too much alcohol use or excessive alcohol use, can increase blood pressure and potentially lead to obesity, both of which are major risk factors for cardiovascular disease. And finally, what we choose to eat also contributes to our risk of developing cardiovascular disease, so diets rich in fruits and vegetables may decrease our risk, whereas a diet high in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium might increase our risk for developing cardiovascular disease.