Nearly everyone who experiences a cardiovascular event — heart attacks, heart failure and strokes — exhibits at least one modifiable risk factor beforehand, new research shows.

The study refutes the notion that these events happen without warning. Researchers found that nearly 100% of people who experienced cardiovascular events over the course of 20 years were either current or former smokers, or they had suboptimal levels of blood pressure, blood glucose or cholesterol.

The researchers concluded that greater scrutiny of these issues could prevent cardiovascular events.

The study, published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, analyzed data from 600,000 cardiovascular disease cases in South Korea and another 1,200 from the United States.

The researchers loo

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