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Heart Disease
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Definition of Heart Disease
Heart disease is an umbrella term for a number of different diseases which affect the heart and is the leading cause of death in the United States as of 2007.
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FACTBOX-Heart attacks often first symptom of heart disease
(Reuters) - Heart attacks are often the first hint that someone has heart disease and they are often fatal the first time.
Here are a few facts about heart attacks and heart disease:
-- Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of men and women in the United States and in most industrialized countries.
-- Nearly 700,000 people die of heart disease in the United States each year, 29 percent of all deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
-- According to the World Health Organization, heart disease, stroke and diabetes accounted for 32 percent of all deaths globally in 2005.
-- A heart attack is also called a myocardial infarction, and is caused when the blood supply to the heart is blocked. A blood clot can do this, or arteries can become blocked by a messy buildup of hardened fat called plaque.
-- More than 1.1 million Americans have a heart attack each year, two-thirds of them men. Almost all of them have heart disease.
-- Symptoms can be
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Heart Failure
The heart’s primary function is to pump blood to all parts of the body, bringing nutrients and oxygen to the tissues and removing waste products. When the body is at rest, it needs a certain amount of blood to achieve this function. During exercise or times when greater demands are placed on the body, more blood is required. To meet these variable demands, the heartbeat increases or decreases, and blood vessels dilate to deliver more blood or constrict during times when less blood is required.
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Cardiomyopathy and Heart Failure, Part 2 - Treatment
While attempting to identify and stabilize the underlying cause, treatment should be instituted to minimize the symptoms of heart failure and to optimize the efficiency of the failing heart. The mainstay of treatment has been and remains medication, but transplant surgery has saved thousands of lives, and new medical devices are being developed to treat cardiomyopathy and heart failure.
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Cardiomyopathy and Heart Failure - Part 1
Patients with cardiomyopathy tend to do much better if they understand their disease, and actively participate in monitoring it and treating it. The purpose of this article is to help patients with cardiomyopathy, and their loved ones, to understand the basics of this disorder, and what they ought to be doing to help themselves.
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Raising Your HDL Levels: Increasing the GOOD cholesterol
HDL cholesterol, or "good" cholesterol, appears to scour the walls of blood vessels, cleaning out excess cholesterol. It then carries that excess cholesterol -- which otherwise might have been used to make the "plaques" that cause coronary artery disease -- back to the liver for processing. So when we measure a person's HDL cholesterol level, we seem to be measuring how vigorously his or her blood vessels are being "scrubbed" free of cholesterol.
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