Do You Know Your Heart Numbers?

Your PIN number, your password. You can't operate without them.

Add high blood pressure, cholesterol, and body fat to that list, too. You can't live without those numbers -- literally.

High numbers = high odds of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Some risk is inherited. But much is linked to things you can change -- like bad diet, smoking, and a sedentary lifestyle.

"Walking is perfectly fine," Michael Crouch, MD, a family and community medicine specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, tells WebMD. "Anything is better than nothing, but 30 minutes a day is what we recommend."

To better understand your heart numbers, here are the basics:

This is new on the heart numbers list. Researchers have identified this protein as a marker for heart disease and stroke -- even in kids.

They don't fully understand the relationship between C-reactive protein (CRP) and heart disease, but it's a sign of inflammation in the blood vessels.

Getting your CRP checked is not yet a routine recommendation. However, more and more doctors are using it to help identify people who may be at an increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

Numbers to worry about:

• 1.0 and less is considered normal.
• 1.0 to 3.0 mg/L is average risk.
• Higher than 3.0 is high risk.

"If you have a family history of heart disease, without a lot of other risk factors, you may have high C-reactive protein -- you may have inherited it," Crouch says.

One of the strongest markers for heart disease is measured in two numbers - your blood pressure. You hear the numbers, but do you know what they mean?

The first or top number is systolic blood pressure -- the pressure of blood against artery walls during a heartbeat, when the heart is pumping blood.

The second number is diastolic blood pressure - the pressure of blood against artery walls between heartbeats, when the heart is filling with blood.

• Normal blood pressure is 119/79 or below.
• Pre-hypertension is 120 to 139 (systolic) and/or 80 to 89 (diastolic).
• Hypertension is 140 or higher (systolic) and 90 or higher (diastolic)

Do these numbers seem a bit lower than you remember? What's considered a normal blood pressure was redefined in May of 2003 when guidelines were revised to include a new category -- prehypertension.

Experts recommend that people with prehypertension -- an estimated 45 million men and women -- make heart-healthy lifestyle changes to reduce their risk of blood pressure complications, such as heart disease, stroke, and kidney damage.

Probably the most familiar heart disease risk factor, cholesterol is a type of fat that is an essential nutrient for your body. However, too much cholesterol - or not enough of the good type of cholesterol -- floating around in your blood increases your risk for hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart disease, heart attack, and stroke.

Cholesterol is considered abnormal when:

• Total cholesterol is 200 mg/dL or higher.
• HDL or "good" cholesterol level is less than 40 mg/dL
• LDL or "bad" cholesterol is 160 mg/dL or higher -- with 190 and above being very high. However, the lower the LDL, the better. An LDL less than 100 is considered optimal; 100 to 129 is near optimal; 130 to 159 is borderline high.

Those with certain medical risk factors (such as diabetes or known heart disease, past heart attack, or stroke) will have stricter cholesterol goals.