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Certain risk factors make it more likely that you'll develop ischemic heart disease and have a heart attack. You can control many of these risk factors.
The major risk factors for a heart attack that you can control include:
Some of these risk factors—such as obesity, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar—tend to occur together. When they do, it's called metabolic syndrome.
In general, a person who has metabolic syndrome is twice as likely to develop heart disease and five times as likely to develop diabetes as someone who doesn't have metabolic syndrome.
For more information about the risk factors that are part of metabolic syndrome, go to the Health Topics Metabolic Syndrome article.
Risk factors that you can't control include: