Cardiovascular Disease

• Cardiovascular disease


  A general term that refers to diseases of the cardiovascular system, which is the heart and blood vessels
• The aim of this video is to take a quick look at these diseases and then mainly focus on the treatments that we can use to fix them
• Coronary heart disease


  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 so that less blood can flow through, which means that less oxygen reaches the heart muscle
• Treatments for coronary heart disease

  1. Stents

  2. Statins
• Stent

  An expandable tube that can be placed inside the arteries to hold them open, ensuring that the blood can keep flowing
• Stents

  • The surgery is relatively quick and they're effective for a long time
  • There are risks such as inducing a heart attack, leading to an infection, and a small risk of the patient later developing a blood clot near the stent
• Statins

  Medications that alter the balance of cholesterol in the bloodstream, decreasing the amount of bad cholesterol (LDL) and increasing the good cholesterol (HDL), which lowers the overall risk of not only coronary heart disease but also many other diseases like strokes and heart attacks
• Statins

  • They have to be taken regularly for years and can cause side effects such as headaches and kidney failure
• Faulty heart valves


  When the valves that allow blood to flow in one direction only become damaged or weakened, either naturally over time or due to other things like heart attacks and infections, causing not enough blood to pass through or blood to leak backwards
• Treatments for faulty heart valves

  1. Valve replacement with biological valves from another human or a pig

  2. Valve replacement with man-made mechanical valves
• Heart failure

  When the heart isn't able to pump blood around the body properly anymore
• Treatments for heart failure

  1. Medications can help

  2. Heart transplant with a real biological heart or an artificial heart
• Heart transplant

  • The donor heart could be rejected by the body's immune system
  • Artificial hearts are generally only a temporary fix until a real biological heart can be found
• Sometimes people require a heart and lung transplant if the lungs are also diseased, but this is very complicated surgery and it's hard to find a donor heart and donor lungs