Diseases

This is a disease where the arteries on the outside of the heart that give energy to the heart muscles to keep beating become clogged with atheroma (plaque on the inside of the vessel.) This process is known as atherosclerosis, which can happen in any artery but for CAD we focus on the coronary arteries. Atheroma starts with high blood pressure, tobacco use, or obesity, causing increased pressure in the arteries that can cause microscopic ruptures in the endothelium, (thin layer of cells outlining inside of arteries.) This plaque builds up once it starts, being made of fats and cholesterol, sometimes bursting causing your blood to perceive it as an injury and begin clotting inside the artery, blocking blood flow. It also just generally constricts blood flow to the heart muscles causing fatigue, chest pain, Heart Arrhythmias, (irregular heartbeats,) and sometimes even cardiac arrest, (Sudden failure of the heart to pump oxidized blood around the body.) The treatment to CAD is a bypass surgery, (Coronary Artery Bypass Graft, this does make the patient vulnerable to future surgeries for other conditions if needed in the future), lifestyle changes, or a balloon angioplasty, (A catheter is inserted into the Coronary Arteries where a balloon is inflated on the area to widen up space in the artery.) This disease is the deadliest heart disease in America, causing many thousands of deaths per year.

Heart Arrhythmias, which have hundreds of different types, have three main categories, Supraventricular Arrhythmias, Ventricular Arrhythmias, and Bradyarrhythmias. Supraventricular Arrhythmias stem from the Atrias, (Top two chambers of the heart) of the heart, Ventricular Arrhythmias occur on the Ventricules, (bottom two chambers of the heart), and Bradyarrhythmias stem from the cardiac conduction system. Typically arrhythmias are symptoms of other diseases, but they stand on their own in the dire effect on the heart and how vast the sheer amount of different types there are. Typical treatment of arrhythmias are Pacemakers and ICDs, (devices that shock the heart and keep it on beat, treating heartbeats that are too slow and too fast respectively.) The fact that there are only two devices make it quite easy to identify deficiencies that can be theoretically overcome with some research to optimize treatment and device lifespan.

Heart Valve Disease is a category of disease where the heart valves between arteries and chambers are loose or dysfunctional. The four valves are the Mitral, Tricuspid, Aortic, and Pulmonary Valves. They separate the chambers to keep a one way, strong consistent flow throughout the heart. The valves can either be too hard to open all the way, too stretchy to where they prolapse behind the valve during a heartbeat, or they do not fully close, causing a heart flutter and a weak blood pressure. The causes of Heart Valve Disease are all after a traumatic event to the heart or a specific virus that attacks the heart, like untreated strep. Risk factors are tobacco use, lack of exercise, and obesity

Cardiomyopathies are quite common affecting 1 in 500 people in the world. It is any disease or disorder that affects the heart muscle to either prevent efficient beating or take up space in the ventricle, space away from the blood that needs to be stored there. There are hundreds of types of these, like arrhythmias, so it is hard to categorize them all into the same disease. As in all heart diseases, Cardiomyopathies are caused by genetic mutations and high cholesterol, but unlike others it is mostly caused by other diseases and infection, like CAD and Thyroid disease. Treatments can never truly fix the problem, so they have to slow the disease to increase quality of life. Devices used to treat this are the usual pacemaker and ICD, but medications like anticoagulants, (blood thinners) and antiarrhythmics, (used to treat some arrhythmias) are used.

Congestive Heart Failure is a condition that occurs when your heart can’t pump enough blood to fuel the body’s oxygen needs. It can occur from a variety of causes but in a nutshell it shuts down most of your body due to lack of oxygen. The treatments for this are intensive and expensive, requiring constant IVs, surgeries, and procedures. It gets so bad that one of the only side effects, besides dying if left untreated, is infection from frequent use of IVs. CHF can be caused from Coronary Artery Disease, Cardiomyopathies, Diabetes, and Arrhythmias. It is the result of a life of bad habits and doesn’t really occur that often out of the blue. It is the final result of all the other heart diseases.

Diabetes is a disease that is thrown around a lot when talking about obesity or heart conditions, but what really is it? Diabetes is essentially when your blood sugar is too high for your body to process, causing damage to different extremities of the body and to organs inside. The blood being too sugary, or having an excess in glucose, damages the body by lack of blood flow. Diabetes increases risks of heart attacks, eye damage, brain damage, and even loss of toes or feet. How does this happen from more sugar in the blood than normal? The glucose in the blood binds with hemoglobin and creates stiffer red blood cells, which struggle to get into smaller arteries to important parts of the body like the eyes or organs. The body would typically break all of the glucose down, however, Diabetes is initially caused by a defect in the pancreas, which produces insulin. Insulin is like the key, if glucose was a lock, that opens up the energy inside of glucose before it goes into the body. Imagine a bunch of delivery trucks, trying to deliver food across town. The truck isn’t useful without the key to open it and get the actual food inside. The truck can even pile up and block other potential sources of food and cause people to suffer in the houses around. This is what happens in your body when glucose isn’t broken down by insulin. Luckily, your body naturally comes with the pancreas, which creates insulin for you. Sometimes, in cases of type 1 diabetes, you can be born with a pancreas that doesn’t fully work correctly, but type 2 diabetes, the one that plagues the nation; that type is born through bad eating and overconsumption of sugar. If you eat more sugar than you can process, even with a working pancreas, it is one of the first things to die out and the rest of your body has to deal with the now much lower limit of sugar you can eat.