Archive for the 'Heart Diseases' Category

—–Role Of Vitamins In Reducing Heart Disease Risk!

Are you suffering with heart problems? Do you know that vitamins play a vital role in solving your heart problems? Vitamins do appear to have a significant role in the treatment of various heart diseases.

In general, our body requires certain chemicals to perform its every day functions.

As our body don’t have enough ability to produce these essential chemicals on its own, it becomes very essential for us to provide these chemicals to our body through vitamins and minerals.

Basically, these vitamins significantly assist our body in all chemical processes that take place within our body on regular basis.

Apart from solving various heart problems, vitamins can also help you in maintaining optimal health condition.

However, the dosages at which these vitamins can benefit you are extremely greater than the trace levels at which they serve as nutrients. So, try to incorporate essential vitamins and minerals in your regular diet, under the supervision of any experienced physician or dietician.

Omega-3 fatty acid supplements!

Intake of fish can help you significantly in decreasing the risk of heart disease. Studies of American heart association recommended that people with documented heart disease have to eat about 1 gram of EPA and DHA omega-3 fatty acids daily, which are preferably extracted from fish.

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Do you have any family history of diabetes or stroke? Then be cautious, you are at increased risk of developing stroke, a life threatening health condition.

Family history of diabetes or stroke is two uncontrollable factors, which can elevate your risk of experiencing stroke in your life. Apart from these factors, age, race, sex are other factors that can possibly increase your risk of stroke.

So, identifying the warning signs of stroke in early stages can become the best way for you, to avoid further health complications.

How to identify warning signs of stroke?

Sudden weakness in face, leg or arm often experiencing only on one side of your body is the most common warning sign of stroke. Apart from this, some other important warning signs of stroke can mainly include:

• Sudden difficulty in speaking or even finding difficulty in understanding the words spoken by other persons.
• Unexpected blurred, decreased or double vision
• Loss of balance or coordination between various parts of your body and also you can feel sudden dizziness.
• An unusual headache, accompanied with facial pain, vomiting, pain between your eyes and also altered unconsciousness.
• Confusion in understanding things.

Most of the time, many doctors have suspected that overweight patients are at increased risk of developing heart diseases.

But, they believed that obesity in addition to diabetes, coronary artery diseases and high blood pressure can lead to heart failure.

Now, studies have assertively shown that obesity itself, without any sort of medical conditions can lead to heart failure.

It was found that people who are merely overweight are at increased risk of developing heart disease, when compared with non-obese individuals. Even if you are completely healthy, in spite of being overweight, it is possible that you have increased risks of developing heart failures [Tips to lose body fat].

How is obesity related to heart failure?

If you are overweight or suffering with obesity, you can possibly develop left ventricular hypertrophy, which mainly occurs due to thickening left ventricle wall of your heart. So, if this heart condition tends to become persistent, it can eventually lead to various heart diseases, including heart failure.

Obesity also associates with metabolic syndrome that can cause severe lipid abnormalities in your body. It is believed that left ventricular hypertrophy or metabolic syndrome can become a reason for some or all cases of heart failures in obese patients.

Do you know that 4 out of 6 diabetic patients die with heart problems? People with diabetes are considered to be at increased risk of developing heart diseases.

When you have diabetes [Diabetes cure], the blood sugar levels in your body will be quite high than the normal requirement.

So, this excess level of sugar in your body eventually damages many parts of your body including blood vessels and heart.

So, it becomes very essential for you to maintain appropriate blood sugar levels in your body. These controlled blood sugar levels can possibly avoid various complications associated with higher levels of blood sugar.

What is the link between diabetes and heart diseases?

Excess levels of glucose in your body significantly change the complete structure of your blood vessels. Due to this particular change in the basic structure of blood vessels, it can mainly lead to cardiovascular diseases.

Because of higher levels of glucose in your body, the inner lining of the blood vessels becomes much thicker and thus impairs the regular flow of blood. As a result, the main functioning of heart affects and accordingly you experience various heart diseases, including stroke.

A new calcium scoring method may better predict a person’s risk of heart attack, according to a new multicenter study published in the June issue of the journal Radiology.

Calcium coverage scoring takes into account not only the amount of calcified plaque build-up in the coronary arteries, but also its distribution.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Each year, 700,000 Americans die of heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The most common form of heart disease in the U.S. is coronary artery disease, which is caused by a build-up of calcific plaque in the coronary arteries leading to the heart.

The current standard of coronary calcium measurement gauges only the amount of calcium present in the arteries, not its spatial distribution.

Diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidemia (abnormal concentrations of lipids [fats] or lipoproteins in the blood) were highly associated with calcium coverage score.

The study also found that the calcium coverage score—which takes into account the location of the calcium—was a better predictor of future cardiac events than currently used measures that gauge only the amount of calcium present.

Source: Medical News Today

Do you know how adversely type 1 diabetes can affect your health? Type 1 diabetes mainly affects the major organs of your body, including heart, eyes, nerves, blood vessels, and also kidneys.

So, it is always important for you to check your blood sugar levels and maintain the blood sugar level at almost normal, which considerably reduces the risk of complications involved in diabetes.

Some times, the complications involved with type 1 diabetes can be long term and develops gradually.

The risk of developing the complications in your regular health conditions depends on how earlier you have developed the diabetes and also on poor control of your blood sugar.

Cardiovascular diseases mainly associated with type 1 diabetes:

Type 1 diabetes can significantly increase the risk of developing several cardiovascular problems, if you do not maintain proper levels of blood sugar. This cardiovascular disease is the most leading cause of death among the people with type 1 diabetes. Some of those include:

1. Atherosclerosis: This condition is mainly associated with narrowing of arteries. Chronic hyperglycemia, which is mainly caused due to higher blood glucose levels narrows your arteries of heart and reduces the elasticity. If you have high cholesterol levels, then this excess fat will also contribute to clog the arteries of heart.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart disorder in people who are advancing in age.

Whenever the chambers present in your heart lose coordination with one another, they start to beat irregularly and desperately, resulting in atrial fibrillation.

Due to this atrial fibrillation, your heart can experience rapid heart rate and poor flow of blood to other parts of your body.

If you have atrial fibrillation, then you are said to be at increased risk of developing blood clots in your heart, which can lead to heart stroke.

Whenever your heart experiences any changes like heart disease or high blood pressure [Lowering blood pressure], then it often results in atrial fibrillation. These episodes of abnormal rhythm in heart beat usually come and go but doesn’t cause any harm to the functioning of heart. Though atrial fibrillation is not a life-threatening problem for you, it can lead to several complications in your healthy life.

Atrial fibrillation mainly results in stroke!

The chaotic rhythm of your heart beat in atrial fibrillation mainly disrupts the blood flow and leads the blood to pool in your atria. As a result, the chance for the formation of blood clots in your heart increases. These blood clots, which are formed in your heart, mainly dislodge from your heart and reaches to your brain, due to which there can be blockage of atrial blood flow, causing a stroke in your heart.

Pericardium is the thin lining which will always protect your heart. Protecting this protective lining of your heart is very much important in order to prevent certain acute or chronic heart diseases.

When this protective layer gets rubbed or if comes in contact with the outer layer of your heart repeatedly, then it results in pericarditis.

Inflammation to this protective layer, pericardium, can result in pericarditis.

It is mostly associated with irritation or swelling of the protective layer that surrounds your heart and as a result you can experience chest pain [Heart conditions responsible for endocarditis].

Infection to the protective layer is the main cause for pericarditis

In general, the two layered pericardial sac that surrounds your heart usually contains with small amounts of lubricating fluid. When this sac of protective layer becomes infected, this inflammation of the pericardium results in friction between layered sac structure and the outer layer of your heart. As a result, you can experience a chest pain and several other signs of pericarditis.

The main cause for pericarditis is very hard to determine and in most cases doctors fail to determine either the exact cause for the infection or fail to suspect any viral infection.

Are you aware of the abnormal sounds of your heart beat? This unusual or abnormal sound made by your heart is nothing but a heart murmur.

This unusual sound is generally made by your blood while flowing though your heart. Heart murmur generally sounds something like water flowing through a hose.

How innocent are these heart murmurs?

Most of the murmurs does not cause any harm to the normal functioning of your heart and doesn’t require any treatment. Most of the doctors have confirmed these abnormal sounds to be innocent and a person with a heart murmur can have normal heart.

Heart murmurs can be present by birth and also can be developed in the later stages of their life. It is not a disease, but it can indicate an underlying heart problem. These types of abnormal sounds of regular heart beat are most common in newborns and also in 50 % of all children.

Know more about the factors responsible for abnormal heart murmur:

Normal heart murmur: An innocent murmur can occur whenever the blood flows more rapidly through your heart like during excess physical activity and while doing exercises.

The arteries become harder as people get older, specifically the arteries in heart, kidneys, and brain.

These stiffer arteries, called arteriosclerosis, cause the heart and kidneys to function even harder.

Cholesterol is a substance that is produced by the body. It is an essential substance for the cell membrane formation, hormones, and other functions.

On the other hand, if the cholesterol level is high, it results in hypercholesterolemia. In cholesterol, LDL (low density lipoprotein) cholesterol is harmful cholesterol and HDL (high density lipoprotein) cholesterol is beneficial. If a person has high LDL cholesterol, it leads to heart disease.

Elevated cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood results in arteriosclerosis. These hardening of the arteries leads in less blood flow and oxygen for the cells and tissues.

When the arteriosclerosis develops near to the heart, then there is a risk of having heart attack. When the arteriosclerosis develops near the head and neck, then there is a risk of having stroke. Arteriosclerosis also leads to high blood pressure.

Lack of physical exercise, excessive white sugar intake, refined foods, and high fat diet that is rich in cholesterol results in arteriosclerosis.