sobota, 3 maja 2014


Chronic Coronary Artery Disease



Chronic coronary artery disease is also known sometimes simply as heart disease, and tragically, it is the number one killer in America. It is cause by a buildup of plaque in your arteries, which causes them to harden and become more narrow. In turn, this severely restricts the blood flow to your heart, which needs the oxygen and nutrients delivered by your blood in order to function properly. Nearly thirteen million Americans are affected by this disease, and this is in the face of the fact that a lot of it could have been prevented. To see how, let's take a look at how it develops in the first place.

Chronic coronary artery disease can begin developing at a surprisingly young age. What happens is plaque starts getting deposited onto the walls of your blood vessels. Then, as you begin to age, this pattern continues, which raises your risk of blood clots (or even heart attacks) quite significantly. Stress and added exertion can limit the ability of your arteries to deliver oxygen rich blood to your heart muscle even further. If a blood clot totally blocks the supply, that will cause a heart attack. So, as you can see, it is best to do everything you can to prevent any blockage from occurring in the first place.

The main ways to decrease your chances of developing chronic coronary artery disease are through diet and exercise. Of course, you have the added benefit here that proper diet and exercise are among the most important ways to stay healthy in general. In particular, when it comes to your diet, you need to severely limit your intake of bad cholesterol. There is a such thing as good cholesterol, but the bad kind will accelerate the buildup of plaque in your arteries even further, which has resulted in the belief that the main cause of heart disease in America is ultimately a poor diet.

The treatment of chronic coronary artery disease, once it has been diagnosed, usually begins with an anti-cholesterol medication. This can decrease the buildup of plaque along the walls of your arteries, which is obviously the goal of the treatment. Of course, if your disease is diagnosed in its later stages, then surgery may be required. That is precisely why it is so important to get your checkups regularly. The earlier this and other health problems are caught, the easier they are to fix.