Causes of Heart Disease
<Atherosclerosis causes heart attacks. Atherosclerosis is a process that takes place bit by bit over the course of time. It involves plaques of cholesterol building up in the arteries and causing the arterial wall to harden. The plaques of cholesterol deposited during the atherosclerosis process also narrow the inner passageway, or lumen, of the artery. Once cholesterol deposits narrow these arteries, the arteries can no longer transport a sufficient blood supply to the parts of the body that depend on them to survive. Atherosclerosis can affect arteries that supply any part of the body, causing that body part to hurt, develop lesions, and experience a delayed healing process when injured. When atherosclerosis affects the arteries that supply the brain with blood, the patient may eventually suffer a sudden death of brain tissue or instead, a gradual death of brain tissue resulting in mental deterioration and later dementia. Atherosclerosis doesn’t always have symptoms. Some people can go for twenty or thirty years without any related health problems—with the artherosclerosis dating back as far as a person’s teenage years. Once the inner cavity of the artery is severely narrowed by artherosclerosis and the blood can no longer make its way through, the patient begins to experience symptoms. The process of atherosclerosis is sometimes sped up by high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, smoking, and diabetes mellitus, which can also cause other complications.
So how does atherosclerosis cause heart attacks? When a patient has coronary atherosclerosis, he or she builds up cholesterol deposits in his or her coronary arteries. The diseases that are caused by the calcium deposits hardening and narrowing of the coronary arteries are called coronary heart diseases. Coronary heart diseases often result in heart weakening and eventual heart attacks. Sometimes the normal dangers of atherosclerosis are eclipsed by a more sudden and urgent danger. Inside the coronary artery, a cholesterol plaque ruptures, forming a blood clot that blocks off the blood flow through the artery. The blood must carry oxygen from the lungs to the heart in order for the heart muscle tissue to survive, and for the heart to continue beating. If the blood cannot make it there, the patient suffers a heart attack.
In addition to the physical cause of heart attacks, there are environmental factors that contribute to the incidence of heart attack. Stress is the most common environmental contributor involved in heart attacks among those with coronary heart diseases. It may even play a role in the development of the disease, indicating that emotional stress does indeed translate into biological stress. Here’s an example. When people get stressed out, their blood pressure rises. Exposure to stressful situations over an extended period of time can lead to chronic high blood pressure, which in turn can lead to coronary heart disease over the course of as few as six years.
Stress can also prompt people to overeat as a sort of misguided coping mechanism. Those people who overeat to deal with stress may become overweight, and the extra weigh can put them at increased risk of heart attack, especially if the person eats a lot of fatty foods that clog the arteries with cholesterol.