Heart Disease Information

When many people think of heart disease, they think of it as a single disease. In fact, heart disease is not just one disease. Many different areas of the heart can have problems and become diseased. Heart disease can be caused by a prevailing weakness, deterioration, overwork, alcoholism, the wrong diet or high cholesterol. Unfortunately, we can't just look inside our body to see the effects all of these heart issues can have. Your doctor, however, can provide heart disease information through tests.

The heart is very simple device. It is a pump with an ignition system and power plant. The heart is divided into two halves, each having an upper and lower chamber. Blood flows down through right side and up through the left side.

Blood flowing through the heart's chambers is controlled by special valves that open and close at precise intervals to keep it going in one direction. The valves prevent blood from being forced back. These one-way valves prevent leakage between chambers.

These valves are controlled by a chemical electrical system. A tiny electrical ignition system is located in the upper right side of the right upper chamber of the heart. This electrical system is called the sinus node. The sinus node controls the rate and rhythm of the heart. The signal spreads out and travels down through the middle muscle of the atria to the bottom of the heart.

The signals of the sinus node are picked up by a relay station called the atrio-ventricular node in the bottom of the right atrium. These reach out into the lower chambers by way of thread like tissues called bundles.

Once the blood has been bumped through the heart, it exists through the aorta, which is located on top of the heart. It is then carried by the pulmonary arteries that take the cleansed blood to the lungs to pick up oxygen. From there it travels throughout the body providing needed nourishment.

All of the different parts of the heart mentioned above can suffer from heart disease and dysfunction. While heart disease is invisible, don't think it's not there. It is. See your doctor for diagnosis and follow up.

If you suspect you suffer from heart disease due to having an abundance of risk factors, there are many things you can do to make your heart healthy again. Improve your diet, exercise, lose weight and stop smoking. Each of these lifestyle improvements can help make a difference to your heart and lessen the risk of heart attack that comes from heart disease.

Related Disease Articles

  • Angina Heart Disease

    Angina pectoris is a medical condition involving constricting pain in the chest. It is caused by a lack of blood flow from the coronary arteries to the heart muscles. The coronaries, the arteries that feed blood to the heart muscles, become restricted because of plaque build-up and are unable to get sufficient amounts of oxygen and nutrients to the heart muscles. If blood flow to the heart is insufficient, the heart muscle can atrophy and die.

  • Bird Flu Treatment

    Over the last decade, bird flu has become a major medical concern, on a global scale, although its effects haven't yet been extremely destructive towards the human population. The risk of a pandemic outburst (one that is estimated to have a death toll of several million lives) is still out there, for which reason international health institutions and governments have been urged to find a treatment for the bird flu as quickly as possible. Some important advances have been made in this regard, however there are still a lot of unanswered questions and problems that are quite worrying.

  • Coronary Heart Disease

    Coronary heart disease occurs when the coronary arteries around the heart become hardened, narrowed and clogged. The coronary arteries are the small arteries that surround the heart. Coronary arteries branch off from the aortic artery. These arteries supply the heart muscle. Through them, nutrients and oxygen flow out to all of the muscle mass of the heart. Plaque build up on the inner lining of the arteries causes a lack of oxygen to the heart. Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of heart related deaths in both men and women.

  • Heart Disease

    The human heart does a lot of work. Whether we are awake or asleep, our hearts beat and pump blood through our bodies. By the time we reach the age of 45, our heart has beat an average of 168 billion times. All of those beats pump about 5,600,000,000 barrels of blood through our body. Between these beats, the heart rests and paces itself. With all that work, it can get tired and suffer from heart disease. Heart disease can set in early than you might think. Plaque can begin to accumulate in the arteries by the age of 45 to 50.

  • Heart Disease Prevention

    Do you know which foods are best at preventing heart disease? There are a few different types of food you can consume that are rich in substances that help fight heart disease and can even reduce its effects. These foods are nutritious and good for you.

  • Heart Disease Symptoms

    The term heart disease is a very general term that covers all sorts of diseases and conditions of the heart ranging from heart valve disorder to coronary heart disease to high cholesterol to arrhythmia to hypertension and more. Knowing some of the symptoms of these conditions can help you counter them and prevent a heart attack.

  • Heart Disease Prevention And Vitamins

    Eating better and exercising are two great ways to lower the risk of heart disease. Studies have shown that taking vitamin and mineral supplements can also lower heart disease risk.

  • Reverse Heart Disease

    Do poor lifestyle choices make you more susceptible to heart disease? Are you aware of heart disease risk factors? Some of the factors that are red flags for heart disease are smoking, obesity, too much stress and lack of exercise. If you suffer from one or more of these factors, there are a number of things you can do to reverse your heart disease by addressing stress and diet.

Latest Disease News

  • Goodpasture's Disease — New Secrets Revealed — NEJM

    Editorial from The New England Journal of Medicine — Goodpasture's Disease — New Secrets Revealed.

  • Hunger and Socioeconomic Disparities in Chronic Disease — NEJM

    Perspective from The New England Journal of Medicine — Hunger and Socioeconomic Disparities in Chronic Disease.

  • Diabetes is responsible for many heart disease deaths | KevinMD.com

    More than one in 10 heart disease deaths may be attributable to diabetes.

  • Severe Respiratory Disease Concurrent with the Circulation of H1N1 ...

    Features of this epidemic were similar to those of past influenza pandemics in that circulation of the new influenza virus was associated with an off-season wave of disease affecting a younger population. Full Text of Results. ...

  • Spectrum of Disease and Relation to Place of Exposure among Ill ...

    Original Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Spectrum of Disease and Relation to Place of Exposure among Ill Returned Travelers.