Healthy heart vs unhealthy heart

Keeping your heart healthy is of paramount importance as you age.

How to know your heart is weak

Cardiovascular disease killed more than 800,000 Americans in 2013 alone, or about 2,200 people a day. And it's not just the fellas over 65—the average age of a man's first heart attack—who need to be worried. Premature coronary artery disease hits up to 10% of men before age 45, and today's average 50-year-old has a roughly 50% risk of developing heart disease as he gets older.

But you can drop that risk considerably, and add years to your life, by simply identifying the major indicators of poorly functioning heart and taking action.

According to the landmark Framingham Heart Study, which analyzed more than 3,500 men over several decades, men free of six big factors—high total cholesterol, low HDL ("good") cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and smoking—had only a 5% chance of developing cardiovascular disease by age 95.

But if you hit two or more of those factors? Your chances of heart trouble jumps to a whopping 69%.

Here

how to tell your heart is healthy

how to check your heart is healthy or not