Study Reveals 4 Risk Factors that Trigger 99 Percent of Heart Attacks

JAKARTA - Heart attacks generally do not occur suddenly without any previous signs. A large-scale study in the United States and South Korea found that almost all cardiovascular events such as heart attacks are preceded by certain risk factors.

The study was conducted on 9 million adults in the two countries. The results showed that almost every individual with heart disease, heart attack, or stroke has at least one of the four major risk factors previously.

The four risk factors that trigger it are high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar levels, and smoking habits both in the past and now.

Overall, the four risk factors preceded 99 percent of cardiovascular events, especially heart attacks, during long-term follow-up in the study published in 2025.

Not only that, even in the group of women under the age of 60 who are known to have the lowest risk, more than 95 percent of heart attacks or strokes are still related to one of these risk factors.

"We think this study shows very convincingly that exposure to one or more of these non-optimal risk factors before the occurrence of these cardiovascular outcomes is almost 100 percent," said senior author and cardiologist Philip Greendland, quoted from Science Alert, on Monday, January 12, 2026.

High blood pressure is the most commonly found factor. Both in the United States and South Korea, more than 93 percent of people who have a heart attack, stroke, or heart failure have a history of hypertension.

With this study it is emphasized that controlling risk factors can play an important role in preventing serious cardiovascular disease later in life. Greenland and his colleagues also noted that the results of this study challenge the recent claims that cardiovascular disease occurs without increasing risk factors.

"The goal now is to work harder on finding ways to control these modifiable risk factors than to deviate from the right path in pursuing other factors that are not easy to treat and not the cause," Greenland concluded.