The cardiovascular diseases contribute significantly as a death cause in all Brazilian regions, mainly the Southeast. Besides, they constitute one of the main causes of permanence in hospital and are responsible for the main allocation of public resources in hospitalizations in Brazil. Consequently, the economic cost of cardiovascular diseases has increased in the last decades. The risk of someone developing cardiovascular disease is evaluated through analysis of the characteristics increasing that individual's chance to develop the disease. The knowledge of those factors associated to the risk is important in order to establish prevention strategies. This article revises the main risk markers for cardiovascular diseases in adults related to the nutrition, as the anthropometrics, dietary and biochemical. Besides, it emphasizes the impact of these diseases in society, as well as the need to take importance of establishing measures of primary prevention to control them.
cardiovascular diseases; nutrition; risk markers; morbidity; adult