Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of Coronary Heart Disease. It's the inhalation and exhalation of fumes of burning tobacco chemicals through the lungs to our blood stream. As our body absorbs these chemicals, it circulates throughout our body, affecting every cell and tissue. Smoking might be addictive, but is it worth it after all?

These chemical known as Nicotine causes the blood cell called platelets to become stickier, thereby increasing the chances of blood clot or thrombosis formation in the blood vessels. About 50 million people in the United States smoke an estimated 450 billion cigarette each year. Whoa! what a number.

The amount of cigarette smoked is reflected in the risk. The more you smoke, the greater the risk of angina (chest pain) or heart attack. For women that smoke about 30 or more cigarette per day, it’s a six-fold increase in risk for heart disease. About half a million people in the United States die each year from illness caused by cigarette smoking. Alarming isn't it.

Nicotine as we know causes arteries to constrict, lowering skin temperature and reducing blood flow to the lower part of the body thereby forcing the heart to pump more blood through the body.
Nicotine and carbon monoxide in tobacco team together to damage the lining of the arteries and other blood vessels, making platelets stickier. So for this reason, one third of smoking related deaths are caused by CHD.

Studies have shown that cigarette smoking are addictive because of the nicotine in them. Also an unknown substance in tobacco appears to destroy an important brain enzyme called monoamine oxidase B responsible for breaking down excess amount of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that triggers pressure-seeking behavior like smoking and drinking.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), smokers who quit smoking before the age of 50 reduce their risk of life threatening diseases like CHD by half. Nevertheless, quitting is always difficult as the crave of the effect of nicotine is unbearable.
But there are many books and products that helps, support groups are also available in your local areas. There are number of nicotine replacement products like nicotine patches, nicotine gum, nicotine nasal spray, nicotine inhaler, anti-depressant and many more in the pharmaceutical stores.

To learn more about smoking and heart diseases Call 1-800-AHA-USA1 (1-800-242-8721) or visit http://www.americanheart.org

Knowledge is power, so Learn and Live!

There seem not to be one single cause of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), but medical research have, however, shown that a whole range of things can make you more likely to develop Coronary Heart Disease.
Just like a very high speeding car is more likely to hit and crash into another car than a slower speeding car. So a person with one or more risk factors will be more likely to develop heart disease than someone without any. Though not every very high speeding car crash and not every with Coronary Heart Disease risk factors gets a heart attack, but the chances are undeniably greater.

These risk factors are divided into two groups: the non-modifiable and the modifiable factors.

The non-modifiable risk factors: are as the name implies, are those risk that we cannot do anything about. They can’t be altered by our lifestyle changes or medical treatments. And they include:

Age and gender: Coronary heart disease becomes more common with older age and it is the strongest predictor of coronary deaths in women. Two third of women who die from heart diseases are ages between 55 – 65 years old. Below the age of 65, it is much more common disease among men then women. This is because after menopause (a period when women menstruating).

Coronary Heart Disease becomes more common among women. It does seem likely that age different among men and women with CHD is related to estrogen hormone that disappear once menstruation stops, this hormone has a way of regulating and maintaining the effects of the Coronary Heart Disease in women. But test carried on women who are undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) have shown some evidence that this can protect against heart diseases. Many doctors are recommending HRT for this reason as well as, of course for other reasons.

Family history or Genetic factor: as with age and gender, we don’t choose our parents so we’re stuck with our genetic history. If your father or mother had a heart attack below the age of 65, this may increase your own risk significantly, but getting it from a second or third degree relative is less likely. The reason being that the gene we inherit from our parents may make us more liable to have high cholesterol or less insulin production in our body.
It is advisable to have a medical check up from time to time with your doctor in order to reduce or treat the risk on time.

The modifiable risk factors: are the ones that can be influenced by changes in our various lifestyles such as diet, physical exercise and medical treatment. The major risk factors include smoking, raised blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, lack of exercise. While the contributory risk factors are obesity, stress, alcoholism, raises insulin level, fibrinogen, homocysteine and some others.

The risk of you developing Coronary Heart Disease becomes greater the more risk factor you have. Some risk however has much greater effect on your chances of developing Coronary Heart Disease, for instance a smoker with high blood pressure and a raised cholesterol level has a much higher risk than a non-smoker who has these factors.

In general, Coronary Heart Disease is a disease of the affluence, it’s rare in the tropics and developing countries but common in North America, northern Europe and Australia and it’s more related to lifestyle.

To learn more about risk factors in coronary heart disease Call 1-800-AHA-USA1 (1-800-242-8721) or visit http://www.americanheart.org

Knowledge is power, so Learn and Live!

Do you know that CORONARY HEART DISEASE is the most common type of heart disease in developed and industrialized countries? Have you heard that CHD is responsible for over half a million death in the United States and more than 150,000 death in the U.K. alone yearly? What is this Coronary Heart Disease all about anyway? Let’s get to know CHD and what causes it.

Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is simply the disease of the coronary artery, a situation whereby the artery that supply blood to the heart is clogged or blocked, reducing blood flow to the heart muscles which need oxygen from the blood supply and this could lead to a complete artery blockage . When this happens in the heart, the result is heart attack medically known as myocardial infarction. The same process in blood vessels supplying the brain results in a stroke.
Coronary Heart Disease is caused mainly by:
-formation of plagues (fatty deposits) in the lining of the and,
-rupture of this plagues and a subsequent development of a blood clot known as thrombosis in the artery.
These plagues narrow the arteries so that less blood flows through them thereby depriving the heart muscles of the much needed oxygen. If blood supply is not restored, there will be a permanent damage to the heart.

Because of our western lifestyle especially in dieting, the health of arteries gradually deteriorates as we grow older. Fats and cholesterol is the major cloggier of the arteries. The fatty deposits (plagues) in the artery are medically called atheroma and the whole process is known as atherosclerosis.
The more the fatty deposits (plagues), the greater the risk of heart attacks. Women should beware because a woman's heart is smaller and has narrower coronary arteries than a man's, so it takes less plague to block them.
Plague rupture and thrombosis leads to a complete blockage of an artery. When these plagues break, it releases a complex chemical which triggers a lot of events leading to thrombosis.

The most common symptom of CHD is Angina Pectoris (chest pain). Angina occurs as a result of restriction of blood flow to the heart due to plague formation in the coronary arteries. The pain is described as a crushing or gripping pain across the chest which may also radiate into the teeth or throat and followed by sweating and breathlessness.
The pain arises from the muscle fiber of the heart that has insufficient supply of oxygen. The harder the heart muscles works, the more the oxygen will be required and the greater the imbalance between the oxygen supply and demand. This is why Angina is typically triggered by physical activities. It can also occur after stress and anxiety.

Heart attack (myocardial infarction) occurs when the degree of narrowing of the coronary is high or if there has been a blood clot (thrombosis) which blocks the arteries. It is important to know that heart attack can occur anytime, anywhere without warning. These are the warning symptoms of heart attack.

- Chest discomfort
- sweating
- Dizziness or nausea
- Fatigue, palpitation
- Fainting, breathlessness. Not all these symptoms occur in every attack

CHD and stroke are two most common form of cardiovascular disease. They account for about 75% of all the deaths relating to heart diseases.

To learn more about Coronary heart diseases Call 1-800-AHA-USA1 (1-800-242-8721) or visit http://www.americanheart.org

Knowledge is power, so Learn and Live!

What is this astonishing organ called the heart. This organ which is the most vital part of our being, without it our body will not function, what actually makes this organ so important and special that when mentioned in poetry, it warms us, but by mere mention of it by our doctors, alas! we’re alarmed.
So let's see what makes this organ the HEART of our being.
The heart in anatomy is a hollow muscular organ in the middle of our chest just to the left of the center that pumps through the body.
It's comprised of four chambers, the right and atrium (auricle), the upper part and the right and left ventricle, the lower part. It's weight around 10oz and beat on average of 50 -70 times per minute, 100,000 per day and a roughly 40 million times per year. At average lifetime of about 76years, it will beat for at least 3 billion times. It pumps around 500 gallons of blood everyday.
The heart is our body system power house because every organ and tissues in the body needs a continuous supply of blood to function normally, especially the circulatory system, the brain and even the heart itself. If the heart does not pump blood for a few minutes, death will be the result.
The heart is made primarily of muscle tissues that rhythmically contracts to pump blood to all parts of the body. This start from when you are born to entire lifetime.
The upper part, i.e. the atria or auricle acts as a collecting reservoir while the lower part, the ventricle contract to pump the blood on. The right side of the heart receives blood throughthe veins coming from all over the body and pump the oxygen-poor blood that it has received to the lungs so that it can pick up oxygen from the air we breath in, while the left side then collect the oxygen-rich blood coming from the lung and pumps it to all the tissues and organs in need of oxygen.
There are four valves that prevents blood from flowing back to the heart. They are the pulmonary, aortic, mitral and the triscupic valves.
The heart muscle medically known as myocardium requires a very good supply of oxygen in order to be able to pump blood different organs and tissues of the body. And this blood supply is provided by the coronary arteries and their branches
The heart is surrounded by a tough, double-layered sac known as the pericardium which has an inner layer called the epicardium. The outer layer of the epicardium helps to hold the heart in place and between these two layers is a tiny space filled with fluid which prevent them from rubbing against each other when the heart contracts.
The coronary arteries come off the aorta (the largest blood vessel in the body). The right coronary artery is usually smaller and supplies the down side of the heart while the left artery has two main branches called the Circumflex and the anterior descending. These coronary arteries are so special that blood can flow through them into the heart muscles between heart beat i.e. as it relaxes.
The Heartbeat: the right and left halve of the heart contracts in unison to produce a single heartbeat. The two phase of heartbeat are called the systole where the heart chambers contract to move blood and the diastole where the heart chambers are relaxing between a beat. Because of these two phases, the heart is able to pump much blood with each beat.

To learn more about coronary heart disease Call 1-800-AHA-USA1 (1-800-242-8721) or visit http://www.americanheart.org

Knowledge is power, so Learn and Live!