Cardiovascular Disease

• Cardiovascular disease is a general term that refers to diseases of the cardiovascular system which includes the heart and blood vessels.
• Examples of cardiovascular diseases include coronary heart disease, heart attacks, faulty heart valves, and heart failure.
• Coronary heart disease is when the coronary arteries which supply blood to the heart muscle start to get blocked by the buildup of layers of fatty material, causing the lumen of the arteries to become narrower and less blood to flow through.
• The two main treatments for coronary heart disease are stents and statins.
• A stent is an expandable tube that can be placed inside the arteries to hold them open, ensuring that the blood can keep flowing.
• The benefits of stents include that the surgery is relatively quick and effective for a long time, but they do require surgery which always has risks such as inducing a heart attack or leading to an infection.
• Statins are medications that alter the balance of cholesterol in your bloodstream, decreasing the amount of bad cholesterol and increasing the good type, which lowers the overall risk of not only coronary heart disease but also many other diseases like strokes and heart attacks.
• The downside of statins is that they have to be taken regularly for years and can cause side effects such as headaches and kidney failure.
• Faulty heart valves can be repaired or replaced with new ones, which can be biological valves from another human or more likely a pig or cow, or man-made mechanical valves.
• Replacement hearts are generally only a temporary fix until a real biological heart can be found, but they can be artificial hearts made of metals and plastic rather than living tissue, which our immune system doesn't try to destroy.
• Heart transplants are a treatment for heart failure, but they're complicated and risky, and the heart could still be rejected by the body's immune system.