Heart Cardiovascular Disease - What You Should Know

Heart Cardiovascular Disease

What is Heart Cardiovascular Disease?

Heart cardiovascular disease / cardio vascular disease age is any condition that affects your heart's ability to do its job, which is to pump blood throughout your body, feeding oxygen to all your tissues and organs. Sometimes, people are born with heart problems; this is called a congenital heart condition. More commonly, heart cardiovascular disease develops as we age and get older, usually rearing its ugly head for the first time in middle age or later. Heart cardiovascular disease is currently the number one killer in America. Key risk factors for developing heart cardiovascular disease include:

A family history of heart disease
Poor eating habits
Lack of exercise or a sedentary lifestyle
High stress
Smoking
Being male
Being overweight
Having uncontrolled high blood pressure
Having uncontrolled diabetes
Having high cholesterol

There are several types of cardiovascular disease or heart disease, which can be divided into four groups (cont'd below):

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cont'd...

Heart valve disease: Your heart has valves that control the flow of blood through its four chambers. You can be born with abnormalities in your heart valves, or they can be damaged by infection or changes that occur in your heart as a result of aging and poor lifestyle habits.

Heart valve disease comes in two forms: Stenosis, when the valves become too narrow for enough blood to pass through, and Regurgitation, where the valve does not perform properly and allows blood to pass both forward and backward, instead of just forward. Your doctor can sometimes hear problems with your valves with a stethoscope as a heart murmur. Problems with your heart valves can lead to heart failure, in which one or more of the chambers of your heart cannot pump blood properly.

Coronary artery disease: The blood vessels leading to your heart can become damaged or blocked up by plaques, which are made up of cholesterol, calcium, and other material. Partially blocked arteries can lead to angina, where you develop chest pain, often upon exerting yourself. A heart attack occurs when one of the arteries becomes completely blocked.

Heart muscle disease: Many medical conditions directly or indirectly related to the heart, including coronary artery disease, diabetes, and heart valve disease, can eventually lead to damage to the heart muscles. When this happens, the muscles can no longer properly pump blood throughout your body. Eventually, this can lead to heart failure and arrhythmias.

Arrhythmias: Your heart needs to pump to a regular beat to effectively push blood throughout the body. When this beat becomes irregular, it's called an arrhythmia. People who have other heart problems are more susceptible to arrhythmias.

How Do I Know I Have Heart Disease?

Some signs of heart disease are pretty obvious while others are more vague, making the condition sometimes tricky to diagnose. Some key signs that your heart may not be working up to par include:

Shortness of breath
Weakness/fatigue
Leg swelling
Chest pain, especially with exertion
Signs of an impending heart attack that should send you immediately to the emergency room include a sudden onset of:
Crushing chest pain that may radiate down an arm or into your neck or jaw
Extreme shortness of breath
Stomach distress
Nausea and vomiting

As you can see, signs of heart disease or even a heart attack can mimic other diseases, even stomach flu, especially if you don't happen to suffer from chest pain. If you're not sure what is causing your symptoms, your best bet is to have a doctor check them out, especially if you have risk factors for heart disease.

Your doctor can confirm the diagnosis of heart disease through a physical exam and one or more of many available tests, the most common of which are:

Echocardiogram: This safe and non-invasive test allows doctors to see the heart, to make sure it is functioning properly. It is also helpful for identifying congenital heart defects.

Angioplasty: During this procedure, a catheter is placed through your blood vessels and heart to see how well they are functioning. If a blockage in the vessels is detected, a balloon can be inserted right then and there to open the blockage, and a device called a stent may be placed in the new opening to prevent it from closing again.

Electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG): During this non-invasive test, electrodes are placed on your arms, legs, and chest to measure the electrical activity of your heart. The test can be performed while you are resting or while you are exercising (called a stress test), to see how the heart performs under both conditions. You may also be given a portable monitor to wear at home to see how your heart performs over several days.

Thallium or Cardiolite scan: For this test, a radioactive substance is injected into your blood system while you exercise. Then a special cardiovascular disease picture is taken of your heart, to see how well blood is flowing through the heart.

What Are The Treatments?

There are several cardiovascular disease treatments for heart disease, and what your doctor chooses for you will depend on exactly what is wrong with your heart and how severe your problem is.

Some treatment options include:

Medication: Drugs like digoxin, nitroglycerine, diuretics, ACE inhibitors, and beta-blockers all work in different ways to help improve the functioning of your heart.

Your doctor may also give you other medication to help control conditions that are contributing to your heart disease, like cholesterol - or blood pressure - lowering drugs.

Pacemaker: A pacemaker can be surgically implanted into your chest if your heart is unable to maintain a normal rhythm.

Angioplasty: As described above, an angioplasty can be performed to open blocked arteries.

Bypass surgery: When one or more of the blood vessels leading to your heart is severely blocked or damaged, your doctor can take a blood vessel from your leg and use it to create a new route for blood to reach your heart. This is the same principle as bypass routes built on highways to divert cars away from high traffic areas.

One of the most important cardiovascular disease treatments for heart disease is lifestyle change. In addition to following your doctor's advice about medication use, be sure to ask for advice about starting an exercise and diet plan.

Top 10 Questions To Ask Your Doctor

Why is my heart not working properly?

How has my lifestyle contributed to my heart disease?

(For each test and treatment) Why have you chosen this procedure, and what are its risks?

(For each test and treatment) What can I expect to happen to me during the test/procedure?

How will each treatment change my prognosis?

What are the side effects of each treatment?

What should I do to improve the health of my heart?

What symptoms should I be aware of that might be a sign that I need immediate medical attention?

When will it be safe for me to start exercising?

(If surgery is suggested) Is this really the best and safest option for me?