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To screen for ischemic heart disease, your doctor will determine whether you have any known risk factors, test your cholesterol and blood sugar levels, and check your blood pressure. Your doctor may use a risk calculator to determine whether you are in a low-, intermediate-, or high-risk group. Your doctor may recommend heart-healthy lifestyle changes to help prevent ischemic heart disease.

Signs, symptoms, and complications will vary based on the type of ischemic heart disease you have. Some people report severe symptoms of ischemic heart disease, but others have no signs or symptoms at all. If you have “silent” ischemic heart disease, you may not experience any symptoms until you have complications, such as acute coronary events including a heart attack.

You may have an increased risk of arrhythmia because of your age, environment, family history and genetics, habits in your daily life, certain medical conditions, race or ethnicity, sex, or surgery.

Heart inflammation can be caused by infections, particularly from viruses or bacteria; medicines; or damage to the heart’s tissue or muscle from autoimmune diseases, medicines, environmental factors, or other triggers.

There are many risk factors for ischemic heart disease. Your risk of ischemic heart disease increases with the type and number of risk factors you have and how serious they are. Some risk factors—such as high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol—can be changed through heart-healthy lifestyle changes. Other risk factors, such as sex, older age, family history and genetics, and race and ethnicity, cannot be changed.

Signs and symptoms vary based on the type of angina you have and on whether you are a man or a woman. Angina symptoms can differ in severity, location in the body, timing, and how much relief you may feel with rest or medicines. Since symptoms of angina and of heart attack can be the same, call 9-1-1 if you feel chest discomfort that does not go away with rest or medicine. Angina can also lead to a heart attack and other complications that can be life-threatening.

Your doctor may recommend healthy lifestyle changes, medicines, or other treatments aimed at keeping your symptoms from getting worse, increasing your ability to exercise, improving heart function, and ensuring a better quality of life. There is no cure for pulmonary hypertension unless chronic blood clots in the lungs are the cause.

Age, family history and genetics, lifestyle, heart disease or other medical conditions, race, sex, and a history of surgery can all raise your risk of developing the structural and electrical anomalies that cause atrial fibrillation. Even in a healthy heart, a fast or slow heart rate—from exercising or sleeping, for example—can trigger atrial fibrillation.

Your genes or other medical conditions can cause pulmonary hypertension. Certain medical conditions can damage, change, or block the blood vessels of the pulmonary arteries. The cause of pulmonary hypertension is not always clear.

Pneumonia occurs when certain bacterial, viral, and fungal infections cause inflammation in the air sacs, or alveoli, of the lungs. Some of the more common causes in the United States include Streptococcus pneumoniae or pneumococcus bacteria, the influenza or flu virus, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).