1
Gibson
Emily Gibson
Nutrition Research Paper
Nutrition 201-301
Professor Peggy Jones
08/23/18
Heart Disease
My families’ greatest health concern has always been something dealing with heart disease and some with diabetes. Heart Disease has taken some of my families lives and almost took my papaws. Due to it being hereditary, it is a definite concern to my own personal health as I start to become older. My papaw, who I love so dearly, was in the army for thirteen years and was a very healthy and successful man. Then one day he had a heart attack, something he never thought would have happened to him. Heart disease has been a part of my family for a very long time and people die every day from an ongoing heart attack. Hopefully these things will not affect me the way it had affected my papaw.
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death in the United States for men and women. Coronary heart disease is a narrowing of the small blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. CHD is also called coronary artery disease. When cholesterol builds in the blood stream the person suffering may begin to get tired easier or have difficulties breathing. The result of this is a heart attack, which occurs when blood flow to a part of your heart is blocked for a long enough time that part of the heart muscle is damaged or dies. The medical term for this is myocardial infarction.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 735,000 Americans have a heart attack each year. Warning signs and symptoms include chest pain or discomfort and shortness of breath. Examples of coronary heart disease include angina and heart attack. Coronary heart disease accounted for 23.5 percent of all deaths in the U.S. in 2008. CHD is believed to start with injury or damage to the inner layer of a coronary artery.
This damage causes fatty plaque deposits to build up at the site of the injury. These deposits consist of cholesterol and other cellular waste products. The accumulation is called atherosclerosis. If pieces break off or rupture, platelets will clump in the area, attempting to repair the blood vessel. This clump can block the artery, reducing or blocking blood flow, and leading to a heart attack.
There are many different signs to having coronary heart disease and these may include: Chest pain (angina)- this pain may radiate or move to the arm, neck, or back, shortness of breath, sweating, nausea, and irregular heartbeat. Not many people with coronary heart disease have chest pains as in a symptom. Some may have signs and symptoms of indigestion, or exercise intolerance where they cannot perform activities that they normally once could. Coronary heart disease is initially diagnosed by patient history and physical examination. These examinations are EKG blood tests, and tests to image the arteries and heart muscle confirm the diagnosis.
There are risk factors that increase the chance to develop plague within the...
