If you are a male over age 35 and have one of the four major risk factors — high blood cholesterol, hypertension, cigarette smoking or stress — your chance of having a heart attack doubles. Two risk factors increases your risk to more than three times that of a person with no risk factors. If you have all four and your mother or father had a heart attack prior to age 55, your risk increases to about seven times. No one can predict with any degree of certainty who is going to have a heart attack. Some people are just plain lucky. They have the correct genes, they disobey all the rules, they never exercise, and they lead a stressful life and yet never have a heart attack. People of this type are not overweight, and fortunately have blood pressures that are on the low side of normal (110–120 systolic). If your blood pressure is low (less than 120/80), and you are average or slightly underweight and your parents both lived to beyond 75, you are on the right side of the track. Women are at risk after age 55 and need preventive measures from at least age 48 (see the chapter Women and Heart Disease).

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