Heart Diseases

Heart disease is a general term that refers to a variety of acute and chronic medical conditions that affect one or more of the components of the heart. About 2 million of people of America are suffering from heart problems.

Heart is the muscular fist sized organ that lies in the left side of chest cavity. Heart supplies the blood to all parts of body. It continuously pumps blood beating as many 100,000 times a day. A cardiovascular disease is not a single ailment but it is a disorder of heart and circulatory system.

Heart disease can be referred to any kind of problem associated with heart or damage of heart valves, lining, arteries or electrical system. A person can suffer from different kinds of cardiovascular problems at the same time. A person can even born with diseased heart or develop heart disease later. Here are some of the heart diseases mentioned below:

Angina-It is a symptom of myocardial ischemia that usually caused by coronary atherosclerosis. Patient of this disease caused with feeling of pressure in chest and also shortness of breath. It is possible that a patient may sweat while exercising.

Heart failure-heart failure is also called congestive heart failure and on the other hand congestive cardiac failure is a condition which results from any structural and functional cardiac disorder. It impairs the ability of heart to fill with or pump a sufficient amount of blood throughout the body.

Heart murmur- It is a term that is used to describe the sound that the heart makes and when it appears different to normal beating. A heart murmur may possibly indicate Arrhythmias which is heartbeat irregularity or other heart disorder, but some heart murmurs may be normal. Any heart murmur needs prompt professional medical investigation.

Atherosclerosis- It is also known as "hardening of the arteries", and caused by the gradual buildup of fats, cholesterol and other materials in the arteries. The build up causes the artery to narrow and become less flexible. Arteries loose elasticity as a natural part of the aging process. However, poor diet and smoking speed up this process. Diabetes and high blood pressure are also risk factors leading to atherosclerosis.

Hypertension- Hypertension is the condition of having high blood pressure. It is very common and affects around 50 million Americans of which about 30% are not yet diagnosed. Hypertension is an under-diagnosed condition as it causes damage to the body with no symptoms. It has been called a "silent killer" for this reason. Correct diagnosis of the cause of high blood pressure is important. Most cases of chronic hypertension are "primary hypertension" but a number of them are "secondary hypertension" where the rise in blood pressure is caused by another underlying condition. Hypertension during pregnancy is another common special case; it is called gestational hypertension.