More than 99% of heart disease cases have a risk factor you can address before you get sick, study shows

Alongside medication, lifestyle changes like limiting foods high in sodium can help reduce the risk of heart disease, experts said. Creative-Family/iStockphoto/Getty Images

Before a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular disease hit, there are almost always warning signs, according to a new study.

Those warning signs are well-known cardiovascular disease risk factors, but more can still be done to reduce cases of heart disease, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

For this study, researchers analyzed data from two groups: more than 600,000 cases of cardiovascular disease in South Korea and another 1,000 cases in the United States.

Researchers analyzed what percentage of those cases were preceded by traditional risk fact