Facts
about Coronary Heart Disease
By
CIGNA HealthCare
Some seven
million Americans suffer from coronary
heart disease (CHD), the most
common form of heart disease. This type
of heart disease is caused by a narrowing of
the coronary arteries that feed the
heart. Although medical treatments for
heart disease have come a long way,
controlling risk factors remain the key to
preventing illness and death from CHD.
Who is at Risk?
Risk
factors for CHD are conditions that increase
your risk of developing heart disease.
Some can be changed and some cannot.
Risk factors for CHD that can be controlled
include high blood pressure, high blood
cholesterol, smoking, obesity, and physical
inactivity. Risk factors that cannot be
controlled include gender, heredity, and
age. Although each of these factors
increase the risk of CHD, they do not describe
all the causes of coronary heart
disease. Even with none of these risk
factors, one might still develop CHD.
What is CHD?
Like
any muscle, the heart needs a constant supply
of oxygen and nutrients that are carried to it
by the blood in the coronary arteries.
When the coronary arteries become narrowed or
clogged and cannot supply enough blood to the
heart, the result is CHD. If not enough
oxygen-carrying blood reaches the heart, the
heart may respond with pain called angina.
When the blood supply is cut off
completely, the result is a heart
attack. The part of the heart that does
not receive oxygen begins to die, and some of
the heart muscle may be permanently damaged.
What Causes CHD?
CHD is caused by atherosclerosis,
or a thickening of the inside walls of the
coronary arteries. Atherosclerosis
usually occurs when a person has high levels
of cholesterol, a fat-like substance, in the
blood. Cholesterol and fat, circulating
in the blood, build up on the walls of the
arteries. The buildup narrows the
arteries and can slow or block the flow of
blood, decreasing and sometimes completely
cutting off the supply of oxygen and nutrients
to the heart. When the level of
cholesterol in the blood is high, there is a
greater chance that it will be deposited onto
the artery walls.
In addition to
high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure
and smoking also contribute to CHD. On
average, each of these doubles your chance of
developing heart disease. Therefore, a
person who has all three risk factors is eight
times more likely to develop heart disease
than someone who has no risk factors.
Obesity and
physical inactivity are other factors that can
lead to CHD. Obesity increases the
likelihood of developing high blood pressure
and high blood cholesterol, and physical
inactivity increases the risk of a heart
attack. Regular exercise, good
nutrition, and smoking cessation are key to
controlling the risk factors for CHD.
If
you have any of the risk factors for
CHD, discuss them with your physician and
consider making appropriate lifestyle changes.
Always discuss
with your treating physician the preventive
health care most appropriate for your needs
and clinical condition.
Adapted from
the National Institute of Aging; National
Institutes of Health.
|
