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Heart Health

How your heart Works

by admin on Sep.10, 2010, under Heart Health

The heart is not an breathless pump: it’s a existing, dynamic community of millions of hardworking cells. Its task is to deliver blood to organs that would die without it. Blood contains oxygen and nutrients necessary for the functioning of every cell in the body, admitting heart cells.

All people heart beats around 70 times per minute, or 100,000 times per day, or about 2.5 billion times in the average lifetime. This vitals is programmed to work mechanically for every second of every day for as long as you live, no matter what else you’re doing mentally or physically. Put differently, your heart never rests.

Your heart is settled just about in the center of your chest and is divided into four chambers: The two smaller upper chambers are known as the left atrium and right atrium and the two larger lower chambers are the left ventricle and right ventricle. Oxygen-poor blood enters the right atrium and is then pumped into the right ventricle and through the pulmonary artery to the lungs, where it is enriched with oxygen (and loses carbon dioxide).

The oxygenated blood is then acquitted to the left atrium via the pulmonary veins, from where it enters the left ventricle, the main pumping chamber of the heart. It is the thick, powerful muscle of the left ventricle that pumps blood to all the organs of the body via the aorta. From a cardiologist’s point of view, it is the left ventricle that is the most significant chamber because it is the area of the heart most likely to be affected by a heart attack .

For blood enters the aorta, some is immediately directed to the coronary arteries . The left principal coronary artery divides into two major coronary arteries – the left circumflex artery (LCx) and the left anterior descending artery (LAD). A third major artery, the right coronary artery (RCA), has its own point of origin from the aorta. All of these arteries have branches, which are also known as coronary arteries. They supply the beating heart muscle with blood and oxygen. Whenever anything obstructs the flow of blood through one of these arteries for more than 20 to 30 minutes, the heart will likely not receive enough oxygen, and the part of the heart muscle fed by that artery will die. This is what happens when you have a heart attack.

Heart failure occurs when your heart muscle is damaged to the point that your heart can no longer pump sufficient blood to the rest of your organs. When your heart is damaged and can no longer pump expeditiously, blood also tends to back up into the lungs, establishing them heavier, which results in difficulty breathing.

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What to Do When somebody Has a Heart Attack?

by admin on Apr.19, 2010, under Heart Health

Heart attack symptoms might dissent between men and women, simply one thing remains the same: the demand for quick action. A heart attack  comes when the heart  is robbed of its vital oxygen supply. That oxygen is contained in your blood, which travels by the arteries to the heart. But whenever an artery has a blockage in it, blood does not accomplish the affection and the heart’s cells die, consequent in a heart attack.A heart attack  is a dangerous, life-threatening situation  merely more people who witness someone experiencing the symptoms of a heart attack don’t treat it that way. It’s estimated that at least 200,000 people die in the United States every year from a heart attack – and that many of those deaths might have been prevented whenever person had sought medical help immediately.

Whenever you are with person who could possibly be having a heart attack, you should never delay in getting help, even if you only suspect there is a problem, Even if it’s a false alarm, go to the emergency room,That isn’t overreacting.

Heart Attack Symptoms: cognising What to Look For
The symptoms of a heart attack aren’t always obvious and often differ between men and women. Those symptoms can be subtle – maybe one reason why some people don’t make it to an emergency room – or they can be very terrible. Knowing what to look for can assist you know when to take action for a friend, colleague, or loved one in distress:

·       For men: The typical male symptom is a crushing pressure behind the breastbone, also called the sternum. That pressure can radiate to your arms (often the left arm) and can go into the back, shoulder blades, and jaw. Men suffering a heart attack can break out in a sweat, and sometimes they will pass out.

The onset of pain may be gradual and last several minutes or more. Sometimes the pain fades and comes back.

·       For women: Women can accept around of the same symptoms that men experience, but adult female  frequently have more “atypical” symptoms, specified shortness of breath, and they may feel about indigestion. A woman having a heart attack may also experience afflict in her jaw, and could feel a little faint.

These symptoms are not what most people consider are indications of a heart attack, physicians and patients have to be very wary when it comes to heart symptoms with women. And permanently reason: heart disease  kills several women than any other health condition.

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Women, Hormones, and heart condition

by admin on Mar.23, 2010, under Heart Health

Estrogen supplies protective profits that may assist women delay heart disease. It might seem as if women do not acquire heart condition since they incline to acquire it later in life than men, largely due to the protective effects of natural estrogen. As long as women are having regular menstrual cycles, they enjoy a significant, although not absolute, level of protection. Naturally produced estrogen is linked with lower levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and triglycerides and higher HDL (“good”) cholesterol. While a woman’s estrogen production plummets in her late forties to early fifties, she begins to lose her hormonal advantage.

Because decades, experts advised women to take hormone replacement therapy (HRT)  to protect their hearts as well as to relieve menopausal symptoms and strengthen their bones. Estrogen’s heart-protective properties looked so promising that nearly half of all postmenopausal female physicians took HRT, a rate higher than that of the general public, according to a 1997 study.

That all converted in 2002, when preliminary results from the Women’s Health Initiative, a 15-year research program, caused a dramatic turnaround in the thinking about HRT. Compared with women who did not take HRT, women who took Prempro, a combination of estrogen and progestin, had a startling 29 percent increase in deaths from heart disease, along with a 22 percent increase in total cardiovascular disease. These results stunned the health community and caused a great deal of confusion in the general public.

Simply as it comes out, the HRT story is probably far from over. A review and analysis of many of the published HRT studies recently appeared in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The authors pointed out possible explanations for the disparities between the earlier observational HRT studies of women who had chosen, in consultation with their physicians, to be on HRT and the more recent controlled trials. One factor that appears to be important is the timing of when HRT is started. Those women who begin it later appear to be more likely to experience heart attacks than those who begin HRT soon after menopause. In addition, much of the increased risk seems to occur in the first year HRT is started and may be due to an increased tendency to develop blood clots in the first year of HRT use.

Whether beginning HRT earlier after menopause and maybe at lower dosages is securer is frankly unknown at this time. Therefore, any decision on whether to begin HRT should be made with your physician after careful review of the potential risks and profits for your especial situation.

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