The unforeseen death of NBC’s prominent figure Tim Russert has raised serious questions about what exactly makes a person more vulnerable to heart attack than another.

The host of NBC News’ “Meet the Press” passed away on June 13 of heart attack. His coronary showed that a cholesterol plaque ruptured in an artery, blocking the blood flow to the heart, causing him a heart attack.

Although he was predisposed to heart attack, being diagnosed with diabetes and treated for coronary artery disease, his death still shocked the medical field, as there were no symptoms to inform him about a possible death.

The American Heart Association says there are four major signs that could mean you are at risk of heart attack. They include chest discomfort that lasts more than a few minutes or goes away and comes back; discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach; shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort and breaking out in cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness.

Usually, a person having a heart attack has at least one of these symptoms, but this was not the case of Tim Russert. He had neither of these symptoms. Moreover, he performed well in a stress test two months ago, another reason to believe that he was not at risk of heart attack.

A possible cause of his heart attack might have been stress. He was an active person, very involved in his show, which he had been hosted for two decades, in other words a perfectionist. He often used to work under pressure, which can be very dangerous when being overweight, having diabetes and coronary heart disease as he did. Also, lack of sleep or overeating could exacerbate heart risk from emotional stress.

Russert’s death made physicians highlight once again the importance of some rules a person should follow to reduce the risk of heart attack. More exactly, people should avoid smoking, lose weight by following a healthy diet, exercise regularly, treat diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol.

Of course, there are risk factors that people cannot control like heart attacks running in the family, age and gender, which are major predictors of someone’s chance of developing a heart attack. According to Philip Corcoran, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Suburban Hospital, it is crucial to know your family medical history when it comes out to heart disease and not only.

Also important in the prevention of heart attacks is doctors’ monitoring the heart’s rhythms and electrical activity as it responds to physical stress. Some stress tests use imaging to show blood flow through the heart, thus letting doctors know how well people do under pressure.

Heart attack accounts for 310,000 deaths in the U.S. yearly, or 850 a day, a number equaling deaths caused by breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke and AIDS combined. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 770,000 Americans will have a new coronary attack in 2008 and about 430,000 will have a recurrent attack.

Conclusively, how well you treat yourself of the diseases boosting your heart attack risk and choosing a healthy life could keep you away from experiencing a sudden death. It has long been stated that a healthy lifestyle, involving a healthy diet and physical activity, could save you years of life by preventing serious conditions.