According to a study presented at the European Society of Cardiology, middle-age adults with three or more unhealthy traits suffer heart attacks and strokes two years earlier than their peers. These unhealthy traits included slightly large waist circumference, and elevated blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar (glucose), the researchers reported.

Together, these traits comprise metabolic syndrome, a set of heart disease risk factors that tend to occur together — and when they do, increase heart attack risk significantly more than any one factor alone.

While they did possess the traits that make up metabolic syndrome, the participants in this study tended not to have symptoms, and therefore were unaware of the risk that their condition represented. They were matched with control subjects who did not have metabolic syndrome.

The middle-age adults with metabolic syndrome suffered a heart attack or stroke 2.3 years earlier than those without these unhealthy traits.

Had these younger people been treated for their underlying condition, these heart attacks and strokes could have easily been prevented, the researchers noted.