Causes of Heart Disease

Causes of Heart Disease

Coronary artery disease, the most common form of cardiovascular disease, is one of the leading causes of death today. But thanks to many studies involving thousands of patients, researchers that have been able to shortlist certain factors that are the Causes of Heart Disease in a person. These are called risk factors. These risk factors contribute to two categories: major and contributing. The major Causes of Heart Disease are:

High Blood Pressure (Hypertension): High blood pressure increases your risk of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. Though other risk factors can lead to high blood pressure, you can have it without having other risk factors. Blood pressure can vary with activity and with age. A healthy adult who is resting generally has a systolic pressure reading between 120 and 130 and a diastolic pressure reading between 80 and 90.

High Blood Cholesterol: this is another risk factor that causes of Heart Disease is high blood cholesterol. Cholesterol is a fat-like substance carried in your blood. This is found in all of your body cells. Your liver produces all of the cholesterol your body needs to form cell membranes and to make certain hormones. Extra cholesterol enters your body when you eat foods that come from animals

Diabetes: Heart problems are the leading cause of death among people with diabetes, especially in the case of adult-onset. If you know that you have diabetes, you should already be under a doctor's care, because good control of blood sugar levels can reduce your risk. If you think you may have diabetes but not sure, you must consult your doctor for tests.

Obesity and Overweight: Extra weight is thought to lead to increased total cholesterol levels. High blood pressure, increased risk of coronary artery disease. Obesity increases your chances of developing other risk factors for example, heart disease, especially high blood pressure, diabetes and high blood cholesterol.

Smoking: Most people realize that cigarette and tabacco smoking increases your risk of lung cancer, but fewer realize that it is one of the causes of Heart Disease and also other peripheral vascular disease.

Heredity: Heart disease tends to run in families. For example, if your siblings or parents had a heart or circulatory problem before the age of 55. But then you are at greater risk of heart disease than someone who does not have complains for heart disease in their family history.

Age: Older age is a risk factor for heart disease. In fact, about 4 out of every 5 deaths occur due to heart diseases that occur in people older than 65.

In addition to this, there are also certain contributing factor that enhances the causes of Heart Disease. They are: Stress, Sex hormones, Birth control pills and Alcohol. Stress is considered an important contributing risk factor for heart disease. The effects of behavior habits, emotional stress, and socioeconomic status on the risk of heart disease and heart attack have not been proven

Coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease is also known by some other names such as coronary artery disease, ischemic heart disease and atherosclerotic heart disease. Among the various types of heart disease, Coronary heart disease is one of the most common one. It is caused when the atheromatous plaques are accumulated in the the artery walls. As a result of this accumulations atheromatous plaques , the supply of oxygen as well as the nutrients to the muscles of the heart is ceased.

The signs of coronary heart disease can easily be identified in the early stage. But the problems remain that in spite of the signs, no proof or evidence of coronary heart disease is found in its early stage. It therefore, very often results in heart attack all of a sudden. Coronary heart disease has been found to be one of the most common causes of heart or cardiac attacks, often leading to sudden death.

The records in the Guinness Book of Records reveal that Northern Ireland happens to be the most affected country by coronary heart disease, in comparison to the other countries in the world. One more interesting thing related to the coronary heart disease is that in the United State of America, one in every three women, aged 40 or above, and one in every two men, aged 40 and above, are found to be affected by coronary heart disease, either severely or mildly.

The risk factors related to coronary heart disease, are excessive smoking, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, type A behavioral patterns and hyperglycemia. There are also other risk factors of coronary heart disease. One of them is high levels of fibrinogen, also known as hemostatic factors. Hariditaru factors have also been found to be responsible for coronary heart disease.

There are some indirect risk factors of coronary heart disease. In spite of their being indirectly related to coronary heart disease, they prove to be very much significant. Some of such indirect, and yet, significant factors of coronary heart disease are obesity, lowness of diet in antioxidants, richly saturated fat diets, excess of stress and the absences or lack of physical exercise. Men who are aged over 60 and women who are aged more than 65 are very much prone to coronary heart disease. It is one of the commonest diseases in the Western countries.

Prevention of coronary heart disease is not very much unique. If the risk factors can be avoided, coronary heart disease can automatically be avoided. Keep your body in regular exercise. Do not grow the habit of smoking or consuming alcohols. Even if you have the habit, do try to give it up. Addiction to any kind of drugs will be most welcoming for the coronary heart disease. Always try to keep your mind calm and cool. A person with a routined life with less mental stress, is very hard to be affected by coronary heart disease.

Types of Heart Disease

Heart disease has become a disease which is effecting maximum number of people. Heart disease effects the functions of the heart. Heart is the most important part of human body which pumps the blood to the blood cells. Inadequate supply of blood may to blood cells can lead to many complications. There are many types of heart disease and each type of heart disease effects the heart in one or another way. The death caused by heart disease has increased in the past few years. The new techniques of diagnosing the heart disease has helped in spreading the awareness about the disease. As the lifestyle of people is changing more and more people are becoming victim of heart disease. The types of heart disease are Coronary heart disease (CHD), Rheumatic heart disease, Heart rhythm disorders, High blood pressure, Hypertensive heart disease, Heart attack, Pulmonary heart disease, Ischemic heart disease, Heart murmurs and Tachycardia.

Types of Heart Disease

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the types of heart disease. It is one of the common types of heart disease caused by inefficiency of blood supply. Most of the people suffer from this type of disease. The heart disease which is caused by the heart damage from rheumatic fever. There are many symptoms of Rheumatic heart disease and each symptom varies according to the heart damage. The heart rhythm disorder is also called as arrhythmia. It is the the disorder in the rhythm of heart. This heart disease can sometime be harmless and dangerous also. One of the common types of heart disease is the disease caused by high blood pressure. It is a disease which is effects maximum number of people. This heart disease is called hypertension. This type of heart disease has to be diagnosed properly to avoid further complications. It is also called as a silent killer. The blood pressure has to be constantly checked. High blood pressure can give arise to many problems. Headache, discomfort and tinnitus are some of the symptoms of blood pressure. Hypertensive heart disease is also a type of heart similar to the heart disease cause by high blood pressure. Symptoms of the hypertensive heart disease are shortness of breath, nausea, fatigue, irregular pulse and hypertension.

Heart attack is also one of the types of heart disease. It is very deadly and is causing maximum number of deaths. It is also called as cardiac arrest and the symptom of this disease is the chest pain. Emergency help is also required if the chest pain is too much. Sometime people mistake chest pain with common heart burn. Pulmonary heart disease is caused because of lung disorder. When the flow of blood to the lungs are blocked this causes lung pressure and eventually resulting in a heart disease. The common symptoms of this type of heart disease are syncope, shortness of breath, chest pain, dyspneea, etc. In heart murmur the heart beat of the heart sounds different from the normal beating. Tachycardia results from the fast and rapid heart beat.

Coronary Artery Disease

Coronary Artery Disease

The changing lifestyle of the people are increasing the risk of heart disease. In the past ten years the maximum death is caused by the heart disease. People suffer from various types of heart disease. One of the most common types of heart disease is Coronary Artery Disease. Most of the people in the world suffer from this disease. Any type of the heart disease can be dangerous to health. The heart disease must be diagnosed earlier in order to avoid the complications. As it is a type of cardiovascular disease special care must be paid to your diet and exercise. It is a disease of arteries. It is also called as CAD. It is said to be one of the main causes of heart attack. In coronary artery disease the blood flow is obstructed in the arteries causing heart attack. When the flow of blood is reduced in the arteries the heart muscles get damaged causing heart attack. It can also result in other heart problems like chest pain. In many cases the disease develops over year and only comes in notice when the patient suffers from heart attack. If the disease is diagnosed in early stage then it can be cured to certain extent thus reducing the complications.

If coronary artery disease becomes more complicated it can largely reduce the supply of oxygenated blood to the heart. The signs and symptoms of coronary artery disease are shortness of breath, chest pain and heart attack. Many people ignore shortnesses of breath but it can be dangerous causing heart attack. Shortness of breath is one o the main symptoms of coronary artery disease. Shortness of breath means the you cannot pump enough blood to the heart. This can also cause fatigue and swelling of arms and ankles. Chest pain is also a common symptom of coronary artery disease. The patient suffering from chest pain can experience heaviness in the chest or pressure in the chest. If the patient suffers from frequent chest pain then he or she must be diagnosed. Heart attack has become very common and maximum number of people are falling pray to it. The maximum number of death in the world is caused by heart attack. In many cases the heart attack happens suddenly without any symptoms and signs. The number of deaths caused by coronary disease is increasing with each year. In United States the disease affecting millions of people.

The complications in coronary artery disease give rise to heart attack, arrhythmia and angina pectoris. Coronary artery disease is the result of atherosclerosis. When a plaque is formed in the arteries it causes atherosclerosis. If the patient is getting early symptoms of coronary artery disease an immediate check up must be done to avoid further complications. If the disease is detected earlier it can reduce many risk. There are lot of tests and surgery done to treat the disease. Those suffering from the disease must put more emphasis on the diet.

Left sided heart failure

Left sided heart failure is the term used to describe the incapacity of the left heart to supply tissues with blood. Left heart has two chambers known as left atrium and ventricle, which communicate thorough the mitral valve. The left atrium (the left upper chamber of the heart) receives oxygenated blood from the lungs, through pulmonary veins and this blood will be delivered to left ventricle (the lower left chamber). The whole amount of blood is pumped by left ventricle in the aorta (which is the main artery of the body) and then into the less large arteries that supply all the tissues and organs (kidney, liver, digestive organs, brain, limbs). Imagine blood flowing in the arteries as a liquid passing through a tube (pipe) and all the factors and interactions between them, which have great influence on the amount of blood that in the end each tissue will get and also the influence on the whole organism: e.g. blood consistency (a viscous blood will allow clots to appear), pressure that blood develops on arterial wall, the influence of arterial walls pressure on blood flow etc.

What is the cause for left sided heart failure?

Left sided heart failure is caused by different pathologies:

• congenital heart diseases,
• heart attack (the ischemia determines cardiac cells to die and a part of the heart is no longer functional),
• coronary heart disease (a chronic ischemia of the heart tissue, a chronic deprivation of oxygen will determine tissues changes in order to adapt to the new condition and in the end cardiomyopathy and left sided heart failure)
• high blood pressure forces the left heart to increase its labor and force, and the only way this can be possible is to increase number of muscle fibers (but the numbers of vessels will remain unchanged, so the same number of vessels will supply a larger number of muscle fibers, which will determine heart ischemia with all the consequences that result from this condition) and increase inside pressure (this pressure will act on heart walls to and will press the vessels which won’t be able to fill enough and this will lead to ischemia)
• another cause of left sided heart failure is heart valves pathology: leaking valves (an amount of blood remains in the heart chambers creating a blood deficit in the tissues and forcing heart, at the next contraction, to throw in the aorta a larger amount of blood, this means a greater labor, which in time will lead to left sided heart failure) or narrow valves (the heart muscle must defeat the obstacle represented by the narrow valves),
• heart muscle infection will determine cardiomyopathy and left sided heart failure,
• excessive alcohol consumption will determine dilated cardiomyopathy and left sided heart failure,
• thyroid dysfunctions,
• heart muscle disorders,
• major cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heart beats).

What happens in the systemic blood circulation, when there is a left sided heart failure?

Left sided heart failure

Compromise of left ventricular function will result in poor systemic circulation: muscle weakness, cool extremities, fatigue, low tolerance to effort, fainting, chest pain, palpitations, rapid heart beats, dizziness, confusion, memory impairment. Backward failure of left ventricle results in pulmonary congestion (blood will remain in the pulmonary veins creating a great pressure and determining shortness of breath, first on exertion and then at rest), hypoxemia (low level of oxygen in the blood), cyanosis (blue coloring of the extremities, because of the hypoxemia), tachypnea (increased rate of breathing), pulmonary edema (because of the great pressure in the pulmonary veins, the fluid from the blood will go through veins walls into the lung). Valvular heart disease may occur due to the increased pressures in heart chambers and pulmonary veins. Another symptom of left sided heart failure is paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea (sudden and severe breathlessness attack during night, several hours after going to sleep).
If you have signs of left sided heart failure please call an MD for medical advice.