If you have one or more of these issues, chances are you have vascular disease.

Prevention is the best defense against vascular disease.
Unfortunately for most of us, vascular disease has already begun so the next best defense is early detection.

Your genetic predisposition to vascular disease begins at conception. Who your parents are and their ancestry play a role in some of the diseases that you might develop in your life time.

Prevention begins with the choices made by your parents for you when you were young; for example, the foods that you ate, the lifestyle of your household (active or sedentary), environment exposures (second hand smoke/living near a factory or in a city), your families socio-economical status.

The consequences of these choices follow us throughout life and are the building blocks of our vascular well-being.

Let's break down these points.

Your genetic ancestry: Your genes are a biological and historical blueprint of who you are. Knowing who your ancestors were, where they came from, and illnesses they developed can give you insight about your chances of developing various diseases, conditions and traits. For example; if you had a parent who was diagnosed with an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, you have a higher risk of developing one yourself.

Choices made for us by our parents when we were young: If your were born into a middle class smoke-free family living in a country setting, who provided you with a healthy well balanced diet, and an active life style vs. being born into a family living in poverty, in the inner city near a factory with little means to provide healthy meals, you might be at a higher risk for vascular disease.

The risk of developing Vascular Disease increases as we get older.