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Understanding Heart Disease
the Basics | Symptoms | Treatment | Prevention
Treatment
How Do I Know If I Have Heart Disease?
In diagnosing heart disease, a doctor first asks a patient for a description of symptoms. The patient's general physical condition is assessed through a standard medical examination and history taking. Listening to the heart for swishing or whooshing sounds, collectively known as heart murmurs, may provide important clues about heart trouble. If heart disease is suspected, further tests are done to find out what is actually happening inside the heart.
An electrocardiogram, or ECG, is usually the first test to be performed. By recording electrical activity within the heart, the ECG quickly reveals any electrical abnormalities in the heart that may be a source of trouble or may indicate that the heart muscle has been or is being injured by ischemia (lack of oxygen-rich blood). Further details can be garnered by taking images the heart using X-rays, a variety of scans, or angiography, a special technique that allows for X-rays of blood vessels. Echocardiograms can also determine how well the heart and valves are working.
Other tests may include stress testing, cardiac catheterization to evaluate the heart's blood vessels, CT scan (ultrafast CT), or sophisticated testing for arrhythmias (such as electrophysiology testing or EP testing).
What Are the Treatments?
Conventional medical care is essential once heart disease begins to produce noticeable symptoms. Its aim is to stabilize the condition immediately, to control symptoms over the long term and to provide a cure when possible. Stress reduction and lifestyle changes are important components for managing heart disease.
Though appropriate changes to diet and lifestyle are always recommended, the mainstays of conventional care are drugs and surgery.
Lifestyle
If you smoke, quit. You should also get in the habit of exercising, since exercise strengthens the heart and blood vessels, reduces stress, and has been shown to reduce blood pressure while also boosting HDL cholesterol levels. Numerous studies done in recent decades indicate that drinking alcohol in moderation may actually reduce the risk of heart disease. But more than one drink a day, and a few drinks per week, is not recommended.
Nutrition and Diet
Even modest changes in diet and lifestyle can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease. Being overweight, especially abdominal obesity, can lead to hypertension and diabetes. If you are 20% or more over the ideal weight for your age, height and sex, you put a strain on your heart's ability to pump blood efficiently. Most people now know that eating foods low in cholesterol, saturated fat and salt will help keep blood pressure low and decrease the formation of plaques -- calcified fatty deposits -- in blood vessels.
Specific treatments for:
Coronary Artery Disease:
Drug treatments may include daily aspirin, drugs called ACE inhibitors (such as Altace or Vasotec) and beta-blockers (such as Toprol). Treatments may also target high blood pressure and high cholesterol -- two major risk factors for coronary disease. In addition, your doctor may recommend surgical treatments such as balloon angioplasty (usually using a metal stent to prop open the vessels) or open heart surgery to repair blocked heart arteries.
Heart Failure:
Treatment usually depends on the cause of heart failure, but often include drugs to improve the heart's ability to pump such as digoxin, diuretics or water pills to help with the fluid retention beta blockers to block adrenaline's action, and ACE inhibitors: and the various devices such as pacemakers or defibrillators to improve the heart's function, and even the possibility of heart transplantation.
Heart Arrhythmias:
Treatment depends on the type of arrhythmia, but can include drugs to normalize the heart rate such as beta-blockers, many newer drugs to help convert the rhythm to normal, drugs to prevent blood clots (such as warfarin) and "shock" treatment on the chest over the heart to convert the heart arrhythmia to normal.
Heart Valve Disease:
In severe cases, patients may require medications to deal with heart failure or surgery to repair the abnormal valve.
Pericardial Disease:
Pericarditis often subsides on its own, but it also can be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin or, in severe cases, corticosteroid hormones. Occasionally, fluid must be drained from the pericardium using a long, thin needle inserted carefully through the chest. If a chronic condition develops, a pericardial window may need to be created surgically to permit this fluid to drain.
Cardiomyopathy (Heart Muscle Disease):
If cardiomyopathy can be detected and treated early enough, either with drugs or with transplant surgery, symptoms can often be controlled and heart failure averted for many years.
Congenital Heart Disease:
Minor conditions often clear up on their own or can be treated easily with medication, while the most severe conditions cannot be corrected and are fatal. Fortunately, many congenital heart defects can be treated surgically, if necessary.
Alternative or Complementary Medicine
For many people, learning to relax can help prevent and treat heart disease. While success varies from person to person, stress-reduction techniques have been shown to moderate high blood pressure, heart arrhythmias, and emotional responses such as anxiety, anger, and hostility that have been linked to coronary heart disease, angina, and heart attack. The choice of relaxation technique is up to you. Some that have proved beneficial are meditation, progressive relaxation, yoga, and biofeedback training.
Dietary Supplements
Several dietary supplements are being studied to determine if they effectively treat coronary heart disease. Those include L-carnitine, coenzyme Q10, vitamin E, and garlic. So far, these are not recommended for use in treating or preventing heart disease; they are experimental.
the Basics | Symptoms | Treatment | Prevention
