Heart disease is the number one cause of death in adults.
All factors alone add independent risk the development of cardiac disease.
If one includes them with the commonly associated conditions of aging, sedentary lifestyle, stress, smoking, and a dose of genetic susceptibility, then a deadly web of increased cardiovascular disease risk is woven. In fact, the presence of any one major feature alone substantially increases the risk of heart disease, but when they occur together the risk is magnified way out of proportion at the contribution of any one single factor. For example, the presence of diabetes or high blood pressure alone increases the risk of heart attack by 2.5 times. When both diabetes and high blood pressure are present, the risk is increased 8 times. We now know that the underlying pathology in Syndrome X is insulin resistance.