Heart Attack Risk Factors

 Heart Attack Risk Factors 

Certain factors contribute to the unwanted buildup of fatty deposits that narrows arteries throughout your body, including arteries to your heart. You can improve or eliminate many of these risk factors to reduce your chances of having a first or subsequent heart attack. Heart attack risk factors include:


Age: In men who are 45 or older and women who are 55 older are more likely to have a heart attack than are younger men and women.

Obesity: Being overweight, and especially having a big belly, has been associated with an increased risk of heart attack.

Smoking: Smoking and long-term exposure to secondhand smoke damage the interior walls of arteries including arteries to your heart allowing deposits of cholesterol and other substances to collect and slow blood flow. Smoking can increase the risk of deadly blood clots forming and causing a heart attack.

Hypertension: High blood pressure is a major risk factor for the heart attack, and especially stroke. Hypertension is very common in Americans over age of 55, but is commonly inadequately treated.

High blood cholesterol: Cholesterol is a major part of the deposits that can narrow arteries through your body, including those that supply your heart. A high level of the wrong kind of cholesterol in your blood increases your risk of a heart attack. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol ) is most likely to narrow arteries. A high level of triglycerides, another type of blood fat related to your diet, also ups your risk of heart attack. However, a high level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol ( the "good" cholesterol), which helps the body clean up excess cholesterol, is desirable and lowers your risk of heart attack.

Diabetes: Diabetes is the inability of your body to adequately produce insulin or respond to insulin need properly. Insulin, a hormone secreted by your pancreas, allows your body to use glucose, which is a form foods. Diabetes, especially uncontrolled diabetes, increases your risk of  heart attack.

Lack of physical activity: An inactive lifestyle contributes to high blood cholesterol levels and obesity. People who get regularly aerobic exercise have better cardiovascular fitness, which decreases their overall risk of heart attack. Exercise is also beneficial in lowering high blood pressure. 

Prevention of Heart Attack

Coronary artery disease is a major risk factor  for heart attack. Below are some very important steps or tips to reduce your risk of heart disease and heart attack:

Don't smoke: Smoking or using tobacco is one of the most significant risk factors for developing heart disease. Chemicals in tobacco can damage your heart and blood vessels, leading to narrow of the arteries. Atherosclerosis can ultimately lead to a  heart attack. When it comes to heart disease prevention, no amount  of smoking is safe. Smokeless tobacco and low-tar and  low-nicotine cigarettes also are risky, as is exposure to secondhand smoke . Please, quit smoking!

Lower your blood pressure: High blood pressure, called hypertension, significantly increases your risk of heart disease and heart attack. To lower blood pressure, try to eat a heart-healthy diet and engage in regular physical activity. Your doctor may prescribe medications to help.

Control your diabetes: Diabetes is a major risk factor for heart disease. If you have diabetes, work with your doctor to control your blood sugar levels.

Improve your cholesterol: If you do not know your cholesterol number then you have to find out.

• High levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol increase your risk of heart disease.

• High levels of HDL ("good ") cholesterol protect against heart disease. 

• High levels of total cholesterol also increase  your risk of heart disease.

Cholesterol levels can be improved with exercise and  a healthy diet low in unhealthy fats and alcohol.


Reduce stress: Practice a relaxation technique like meditation or yoga, and take time out every day for a few quiet minutes to unwind and appreciate life.

Healthy weight: Obesity and being overweight are major risk factor for a host of diseases, including heart disease and diabetes. Exercise and a healthy diet can help, but some people might want to work with a doctor help them get to a healthy weight.

Exercise: Being active and taking regular exercise will lower your blood pressure by keeping your heart and blood vessels in good condition. Regular exercise can also you lose  weight which will help lower your blood pressure. Low-impact activities like walking, swimming and cycling are recommended.

Heart Failure

Heart failure is condition in which the heart can't pump enough blood to the rest of the body. Heart failure does not mean the heart has stopped working. Rather, it means that the heart's pumping power is weaker than normal. With heart failure, blood moves through the heart and body at a slower rate, and pressure in the  heart increases. As a result, the heart can't pump enough oxygen and nutrients to meet the body's needs. The chambers of the heart may respond by stretching to hold more blood to pump through the body and by becoming stiff and thickened. This helps to keep  the  blood moving, but the heart muscle walls may eventually weaken and will be unable to pump as efficiently. As a result the kidneys may respond by causing the body to retain fluid and salt. If fluid builds up in the arms, legs, ankles, feet, lungs, or other organs, the body becomes congested, and congestive heart failure is the term used to describe the condition.

Causes of heart failure 

Heart failure is often a long-term(chronic) condition, but it can sometimes develop suddenly. It can be caused by many different heart problems.


The condition may affect only the left-side or right-side of the heart. These are called right-side heart failure or left-side heart failure. More often, both sides of the heart are involved.

Heart failure is present when :-

• Your heart muscle can't pump the blood out of the heart very well. This is called systolic heart failure.

• Your heart muscles are stiff and do not fill up with blood easily. This is called diastolic heart failure.

These problems mean the heart is no longer able to pump enough oxygen- rich blood out to the rest of your body.



If we want to lead a healthy, happy life and that will be free from all types of heart diseases, then we must know about heart diseases, i believe that you will get very important information after reading this article.

Heart Diseases : Causes, Symptom, Prevention and Treatments

Heart disease is a general term that means the heart is not  working normally or properly that time this  can be called heart disease. Babies can be born with heart disease. This is called congenital heart disease. If people get heart later, it is called acquired heart disease. Most heart disease is acquired.

There are many types of heart disease. Various types of heart disease include:-

• Dilated cardiomyopathy 

•  Arrhythmias 

•  Aortic stenosis

• Aortic regurgitation

• Alcoholic cardiomyopathy 

• Cardiogenic shock

•  Congenital heart disease

• Coronary artery disease

•  Endocarditis

•  Heart failure

• Heart tumor

•  Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

• Idiopathic cadiomyopathy

• Ischemic cardiomyopathy

•  Acute mitral regurgitation

• Chronic mitral  regurgitation

• Mitral  stenosis

• Mitral valve prolapse

•  Pulmonary stenosis

•  Stable angina

•  Unstable angina

•  Tricuspid regurgitation

Causes of Heart Diseases:

There are many causes of heart diseases. Most of the heart diseases are caused by high blood pressure contributes to hardening of the arteries. High levels of bad cholesterol build up in the arteries as a result of uncontrolled diet with high levels of saturated fat and trans fat. All these add the formation of atherosclerosis lesions and eventually arterial blockage or anything to damage the inner lining of blood vessels and impedes the transportation of oxygen and also nutrition to our heart can be defined as a risk of heart disease.

Symptoms of heart diseases:

There are some early indication of heart disease symptoms below :

 Leg cramps during walking 

Leg cramps during exercise might be caused by dehydration. This is very important to drink a lot of fluid during exercise. Leg cramps occur when our muscle suddenly and forcefully contracts. The most common muscles to contract in this manner are muscles that cross two joints. Leg cramps during walking might be an indication of heart disease caused by arteries in your leg being clogged up by cholesterol in result of not enough oxygen being delivered to the cells in our leg.

 Headaches

People see sparkling zigzag lines or loss of vision before a migraine attack may be at particular risk of future cardiovascular problems. Usually headaches don't cause heart disease but a sudden, explosive without any symptoms.

Chest Pain

Usually chest pain caused by blood vessels in the heart temporarily being blocked up. It is also caused by inadequate oxygen  supply to the heart muscles or coronary. The persistence of chest pain would be an early indication  of heart diseases.

Dizziness


Dizziness can have some causes including low blood count, low iron in the blood stream and blood disorders, dehydration and viral illnesses. Since there are many different conditions that can produce these symptoms, anybody experiencing episodes of severe headaches or dizziness ought to be checked by your doctor.

palpitations

Palpitations is an extremely common symptom of heart disease. Palpitations are skips in the heart beats and irregular heart beats.

Shortness of breath 

Shortness of breath is the major symptom of the left ventricular insufficiency. People with shortness of breath, if they  are four times more likely to die from a heart disease related cause than individual without any symptom.

Loss of consciousness

This is a common symptom, most people pass out at least once in their lives. However, sometimes loss of consciousness indicates a dangerous condition like heart disease so when loss of consciousness occurs it is very important to figure out the cause.

Without these there are more symptoms such as fatigue, memory defects, and changes in skin tone and temperature.


Prevention Of Heart Diseases :

We know that prevention is better than cure. This also saying applies greatly to the category of heart diseases. At present heart disease is the number 1 leading caused of death. Once affected, the rest of life becomes dependent upon the mercy of God. So it is better to take preventive measures so that any heart diseases doesn't happen in the first place.

Here are some steps that can help you to prevent heart diseases :

 Don't smoke or use snuff products

Smoking or using snuff products is one of the most important risk factor for developing CDH. When it comes to preventing disease, no amount of smoking is safe. The snuff smokeless, low-tar and low nicotine cigarettes are also at risk, as is exposure to secondhand smoke.

Snuff smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals. Many of these may damage the heart and blood vessels, making them more vulnerable to the narrowing of the arteries[atherosclerosis]. Atherosclerosis can lead to heart attack.

Women who smoke and take birth control pills are at greater risk of heart attack or stroke than are those who don't do well. Worse, this risk increases with age.

However, the good news is that when you stop smoking, your risk of heart disease drops dramatically within one year. It will not be any matter how much you smoked, you begin to reap significant benefits in terms of quitting.

 stay active   

Regularly participate in moderate physical activity can reduce their risk of fatal CHD. When you combine physical activity with lifestyle measures, such as maintaining a healthy weight, the reward is even greater..


Eat a heart healthy diet

Eating a special diet called the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension [DASH] eating plan can help to  protect your heart. The diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low fat dairy products help to protect your heart. Legumes, low fat sources of protein and certain types of fish can also reduce your risk of heart disease.

Heart-healthy eating doesn't mean to reduce amount of food and fruits too much. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables that not only can prevent heart disease, but also can help to prevent cancer. That is one of the best answer to the question " How to prevent heart diseases?"


The Treatment Of Heart Disease :

Medical treatment like pain medication, nitroglycerine taken under the tongue, aspirin and oxygen is administered via a nose tube or mask. Aspirin may be prescribed as it thins the blood and helps to prevent clotting. Other drugs may also be given to prevent clotting. The sooner heart disease treatment is given better, as this may preclude the chance of the arteries becoming blocked.

Heart surgery is an option for the treatment of the heart problem, it is a very risky risky procedure. To endure the discomfort of surgery and the relatively long recuperation period are unpleasant consequences of heart surgery. Heart disease may affect anyone at any stage of life.

People who don't respond to medication or have a rapid decline in their heart condition become candidates for heart surgery. There are some instances when surgery is the only method available to repair the heart disease and offers the patients the possibility of good health subsequently. The repetition of surgery may be needed in some cases .

   

Heart and Heart Disease

Heart is a hollow muscle that pumps blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions. Heart is found all animals with a circulatory system {including all vertebrates }. Human heart though, as all other mammalian hearts, is different from the heart of other animals.
 Heart disease is a broad term use to describe a range of diseases that affect our heart. There are various diseases that fall under the umbrella of heart disease include diseases of our blood vessels, such as coronary artery disease; heart rhythm problems; heart infections; and heart defects you're born with.

There are many types of heart diseases. Below is about some more common heart diseases:

(A) Congenital heart disease:

There is a fallacy of thinking that may people when they believe that all heart diseases are brought about by out side factors or that it needs some periods of time for disease to build up. This is, of course, not true as one of the most common types is congenital heart disease.

Congenital heart disease means the heart disease which is passed down through the family, and this is considered as being a congenital type as it principally inevitable. If you have early heart problem in your family then you also are at danger for congenital heart disease.

Although congenital heart disease can be caused by many factors, some of them are actually preventable. If heart problem is clustering in your family, then it may just be because of the way that your family lives, including  unhealthy practices such as poor diet, little or don't have exercise, and smoking. All of these aspects may contribute to heart problem and may create the sequence of congenital heart disease.

(B) Coronary heart disease:

Coronary heart disease, it is the most frequent type of heart problem of all, and is also leading reason of  heart attacks. Coronary heart disease is a term that refers to damage to the heart that happens because its blood supply is decreased, and what happens here is that fatty deposits build up on the linings of  the blood vessels that provide heart muscles with blood, resulting in them narrowing. This narrowing decreased blood supply to the heart muscles and also caused pain that is identified as angina.

There are some factors which are considered as being responsible cause of coronary heart disease. One in particular high cholesterol that may increase fat concentration in your blood and create the building up of fatty  deposits. Another one of the major factors of coronary heart is cigarette and smoking tobacco, as a smoker's risk of getting heart problem is two times that of a nonsmoker, and studies have actually revealed that after 5 years of quitting smoking, the risk of creating is the same as that of someone who had never smoked in their life.

(C) Congestive heart failure: 

When the heart can not pump adequate blood to the other organs in the body that time it is called congestive heart failure. Congestive heart failure can be often result from heart problem and constricted arteries. Congestive heart failure results in a heart which work a lot less efficiently than it should and can further problem. Symptoms regularly consist of swelling and edema, shortness of breath, and kidney problems which in turn can lead to mysterious weight gain. Even elevated blood pressure and alcohol abuse can lead to congestive heart failure.

The patients of congestive heart failure may be examined for congestive heart failure if they have suffered from heart problem in the past, are alcoholic, have a family history of heart problem or show one or all of the symptoms that are caused by congestive heart failure. There are choices of examinations that  aid a doctor in diagnosing this heart crisis. Treatment should begin without delay, starting with changes to diet and exercise,   as patient should abolish salt from diet altogether and sternly limit their fluid intake. Further treatment should be taken by a good professional doctor.

(D) Rheumatic heart disease: 

Rheumatic heart disease frequently derives from strep throat  infections. This may be a reason for many because strep throat, while often preventable, is a quit common condition that affects many people who don't treat a minor sore throat infection in time. However there can't be any reason or cause because rheumatic heart disease that comes from strep throat is fairly rare. The cause of rheumatic heart disease has decreased considerably since 1960 .


If rheumatic fever, which usually happens due to chronic strep throat, is contracted and leads to rheumatic heart disease, the situation can be treated in a way that is much easier than the common treatments for other types of heart problems. This treatment usually involves taking cortisteroid  anti-inflammatory medication to reverse any possible cardiac problems the fever might make. This doesn't rule out the risk for the requirement for more advanced treatment such as surgery, but it does signify the probability for a simple, yet effective treatment.

(E) Pulmonary heart disease:

This is a disease that comes from a lung, or pulmonary, disorder, or a complication of lung problems where blood flow into lung is slowed or even totally blocked, resulting increased pressure on the lung. There are some different symptoms that come with pulmonary heart disease, such as shortness of breath, syncope, dyspnoea and chest pain.

Pulmonary is a state which is often misdiagnosed and has frequently progressed to late stages by the time it is actually correctly diagnosed. At present there are many new treatments which are accessible which have extensively improved the overall prognosis  of this disease.


Heart failure:

Heart failure doesn't mean the heart has stopped working. Rather, heart failure means that the heart's pumping power is weaker than normal. With heart failure, blood moves through the heart and body slowly, and pressure in the heart increases. As a result, the heart can't pump enough oxygen and nutrients to meet the body's needs. The chamber of the heart respond by stretching to hold more blood to pump through the body  or by becoming more stiff and thickened. It helps  to keep the blood moving for a short while, but in time, the heart muscle walls weaken are unable to pump as strongly. As a result, the kidneys respond by causing the body to retain fluid and sodium. If fluid builds up in the arms, legs, ankles, feet, or other organs, the body  becomes congested , and congestive heart failure is the term used to describe the condition.