Coronary Heart Disease
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the most common form of heart disease, affecting approximately 12.6 million Americans. Coronary heart disease is caused when fatty plaques accumulate along the walls of the coronary arteries, narrowing them and thereby reducing blood flow to the heart. This process is referred to as atherosclerosis. Over time, the heart muscle, which is “starved" of oxygen and nutrients carried by the blood, begins to weaken, and parts of it may even die.
Coronary heart disease is the single greatest cause of death for both men and women in the United States. Every year more than 495,000 Americans die of CHD-induced heart attacks.
Each year there are more than 1.1 million heart attacks in the United States. Of these 250,000 are sudden, causing the patient to die within an hour.
Many of the risk factors for CHD and stroke are controllable. These include high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes, and stress. Other factors, such as gender, genetics, and age are not controllable. Males are at greater risk at a younger age than women, but women who have passed through menopause have at least the same risk as a man of the same age. Women tend to have more severe first heart attacks and are more likely to die of a first heart attack than men are.
The only certain way to diagnose and measure the extent of CHD is through the use of coronary angiography. In this method, a tube is inserted into an arm or leg artery and is navigated up into the main arteries supplying blood to the heart. A dye is then released from the tube, and the blood vessels and heart are then filmed as the heart pumps. The picture taken, or angiogram, will show blockages caused by the thickening of the inside walls of the coronary arteries. Other methods to diagnose CHD include electrocardiograms, stress tests, and nuclear scanning.
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