Risk Factors For Heart Dieases

Answer 1

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death and high hospitalization costs in the United States. However, heart disease is a medical illness that can be prevented, or at least managed, by identifying risk factors that can cause or worsen heart disease. Many of these risk factors are due to personal habit, but some also include medical conditions that may require medical treatment.

By far one of the biggest, if not the biggest, risk factors leading to heart disease is smoking. Smoking causes multiple deleterious effects in the body, but in terms of the heart, it is bound to cause long-term ischemic effects in the heart. Imagine holding your breath for 20 minutes. Even the most accomplished person may be able to hold his or her breath for two to three minutes. Each smoking episode essentially causes all the cells in the body to hold their breath for 20 minutes. What happens is that smoking is a vasoconstrictive event, causing reduction of blood flow to all organs in the body by squeezing blood vessels and making them smaller. The net effect is reduced oxygen perfusion. For the heart, this may cause less blood flow and oxygen perfusion to the heart. In addition, smoking can contribute to plaques in the heart vessels, causing direct blockage of blood flow to the heart. Simple smoking cessation improves life survival by leaps and bounds.

Another important risk factor is diet. A diet heavy in salt and fat can lead to medical conditions that can cause or worsen heart disease. Though the actual medical illnesses are what causes heart failure, the way to prevent the cascade is partially in diet. A salt-heavy diet can lead to high blood pressure, or hypertension. Hypertension itself can cause remodeling in the heart due to the continuous high pressure burden on the heart, leading to heart failure. A fat-heavy diet can lead to high levels of cholesterol and lipids, increasing the chances of a heart attack; heart attacks in itself are causes of heart failure. An unbalanced diet with lots of refined sugars and sweets can lead to Diabetes mellitus type II. Diabetes itself can cause heart failure through a variety of mechanisms. Eating a diet with moderation of salt, fat and refined sugar increases survival rates and reduces incidence of heart failure.

Other causes of heart failure are not as prevalent as the ones described above, but are contributory. Managing medical illnesses such as hyperthyroidism, hypertension and diabetes properly can prevent the onset of heart failure. Alcoholic cardiomyopathy, caused by massive alcohol abuse, can be prevented by simple moderation of alcohol. By identifying these risk factors and ceasing them, not only does the incidence of heart failure go down, but also the quality of life in general goes up due to other healthy benefits.