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Heart Disease

Heart disease is the name given to a whole host of heart conditions that affect people on a daily basis. To really understand what heart disease is you need to know what each of the conditions that make heart disease are, and what they do to our body.

Below is a list of a few major conditions that affect the heart; this does not represent the full scope of all the different conditions that make up heart disease.

Valvular

In the heart there are valves, which help the bloods journey through the heart process, sometimes these valves can have problems that impede the flow of blood and greatly affect a person.

The valves in the heart are the tricuspid valve and pulmonic valve, which are both found in the right side of the heart and the mitral valve and aortic valve, which are found in the left side of the heart.

There are a great number of different conditions that affect the valves in different ways but they all generally involve a valve being to narrow, wide or loose causing regurgitation of the blood.

Hypertensive

Hypertensive heart disease is related to hypertension, which is commonly known as high blood pressure and affects a large group of people worldwide.

High blood pressure means the heart has produced an elavated amount of pressure to pump the blood around the body, this can, overtime cause a strain on the heart leading to heart failure or an aoritc arterial aneurysm.

An aortic arterial aneurysm is the bulging of a blood vessel in the artery, which will increase to the point that it bursts causing severe pain, and without immediate medical assistance, death.

If found early then surgical intervention can take place and an artificial tube sewn into the aorta and the aneurysm closed so it wont rupture causing a massive internal hemorrhage. This surgery is very invasive so the medical professionals will not carry out the surgery unless it is deemed necessary.

Coronary

Coronary heart disease is the build up of atheromatous plaque (inflamed tissue) in the wall of the artery; this can build up over time and restrict the flow of blood to the heart causing heart failure. If this does not happen then there is also the possibility that the plaques can rupture causing blood to clot and restrict blood flowing to the heart.

Pulmonary

If there is a change in the structure of the right ventricle located in the heart, due to respiratory problems. The affect this has on the right ventricle is great; it can cause increased pressure in the right ventricle, which will eventually lead to the right ventricle stretching through dilation or additional muscle growth in the ventricle to help add strength to the contractions needed for the increase in pressure.

This will add a lot of strain to the heart and will eventually lead to heart failure, and in some cases swelling in the legs.

Summary

As you can see the causes and affects vary greatly, and it is due to this hat we need to be diligent and understand heart disease better, after all it is one of the biggest killers of the present day.