Just consult any medical glossary and they will tell you that heart disease is a kind of disorder in which heart loses its abilities and its normal functioning is affected. The coronary arteries in the heart are responsible for supplying blood into the heart. The narrowing or blockage of the coronary arteries is regarded as the commonest cause of all kinds of heart diseases. However, it is a slow process of deterioration that takes place gradually over time. But there are a considerable percentage of populations that are born with heart disorder and these are called congenital heart diseases.
Just go through the estimates of the World Health Organization: Nearly 17 million deaths recorded worldwide were due to the poor cardiovascular health. Take the instance of USA and half of the total numbers of deaths every year are caused by some kind of heart disease. About 70 million Americans live with some form of cardiovascular disease.
Every day some 2500 deaths occur due to heart dysfunction. Why only USA, in majority of the countries in the developed world, you will find a sizeable population falling victim of some kind of heart disease. Not only the developed countries, heart related deaths are quite common in the many developing countries as well. In a nutshell, in the recent years, heart disease has emerged as the common enemy of the entire adult population of the world.
Poor cardio vascular health may manifest in several ways. High blood pressure, coronary artery dysfunction, valvular heart disease, stroke, or rheumatic fever or rheumatic heart diseases are all different versions of a weak heart.
It has been possible to identify a number of risk factors behind this killer disease, thanks to the incessant efforts of the medical researchers. Risk factors refer to the specific factors that play a crucial role in a person’s chances of developing heart disease. There are mainly two types of risk factors: major and contributing.
While the major risk factors are those having proven record of enhancing the chances of your getting heart disease, the contributing risk factors are those that have possibilities of triggering off heart disease, but it has not been defined how they do it. While these factors such as high blood pressure or hypertension, high cholesterol level in the blood, diabetes, smoking, sedentary lifestyle or obesity are among the major risk factors, stress, sex hormones or birth control pills are some of the contributing factors.
There are many risk factors that can be treated. But there are some that can not be changed. But it is possible to control most of the risk factors if you lead a healthy lifestyle.