Heart Disease Symptoms

While there are many illnesses that fall under the umbrella of heart disease, one that receives little attention is Cardiomyopathy. This disease is caused by long term alcohol abuse and leads to heart failure in the victim.

The symptoms of this debilitating disease usually start to occur after the disease has advanced. The symptoms are swelling of the ankles, feet and legs; loss of appetite, difficulty breathing, fatigue, shortness of breath, decreased concentration, cough with mucus or pink material, need to urinate at night, palpitations, and irregular or rapid pulse. Once these symptoms have begun to present themselves the disease has already advanced.

The treatment course for this disease is a complete abstinence from alcohol. A restricted diet and medications will also be prescribed. The most difficult part of the treatment may be the abstinence from alcohol. If a patient has abused alcohol to the point of causing heart disease they have probably suffered with the disease of alcoholism for most of their life. It is absolutely imperative that the patient seeks treatment for alcoholism as part of their overall treatment plan.

Finding the correct course of treatment for alcoholism is not always easy. The patient must understand and be willing to treat their abuse of alcohol in order for treatment to be successful. The connection between the heart disease and the alcoholism must be clear to the patient for them to understand the ramifications of their continued drinking. While the heart disease may never be able to be reversed its progress can be slowed or stopped.

Many alcoholics fail to see the correlation between their physical problems and the alcohol they consume. One of the most frustrating aspects of alcoholism is the denial that usually accompanies it. Families and friends of alcoholics are usually guilty of this denial as well. Many families will cover up for a loved ones drinking so that they do not feel any ill effects from their disease. This must stop in every case but most especially in the case of alcoholic heart disease.

The patient is suffering from two diseases and both must be treated successfully for the patient to survive. Families must understand that they are not helping the alcoholic by covering up their problems and allowing them to drink uncontrollably. It will be necessary for every member of a family to participate in their loved ones recovery. By participation it may mean that family members will no longer cover up drinking and not allow the alcoholic to lie about their drinking. Facing their responsibilities is the best medicine a family can provide to the alcoholic.

While alcohol may have caused the heart disease the patient is suffering from it does not have to continue to add to further deterioration. Heart disease that is caused by excessive and chronic drinking is a wake up call to the alcoholic. It is a message from the body that their continued abuse must stop. They must heed the warnings that their body is telling them before it is too late.

The best time to consider a bypass is before you have any symptoms of heart disease.Though weighing only about ten ounces, a healthy heart is capable of pumping 1,000 gallons of life sustaining blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels by beating an incredible 100,000 times a day for as much as 100 years or more.

Understanding Your Heart

To get an idea of the intensity of your heart’s job, let’s do an experiment. Take a tennis ball and fold your fingers over it. Now squeeze the ball every second for an entire minute – sixty times. It’s an exhausting job, isn’t it?

That’s the work your heart has to do for your whole life – 60 to 70 times every minute, 4,000 times every hour, 24 hours a day, all day – every day.

Maybe you’ve been taking your heart for granted!

This highly efficient pump is the most amazing organ in your body. It’s also probably the most abused, although I’m sure nobody does it intentionally.

But the fact is, heart disease is the number one killer in the U.S. and in over 50% of the cases, there are no prior indications – the first symptom of the disease is death.

Cardiovascular Disease and Your Heart

Many types of coronary diseases are known. Some are caused by an infection, some are congenital but most heart problems are caused by hardening of the arteries.

And if you add oxidized cholesterol to the blood, you get an even more serious condition. Both hardening of the arteries and oxidized cholesterol restrict the flow of blood to the body’s cells, causing major health concerns for your heart.

Different cardiovascular conditions can vary by degrees, but may have common signs and symptoms. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, poor LDL ratios, elevated triglyceride and homocysteine levels are the most common indicators of trouble ahead.

Common symptoms include angina (chest pain), shortness of breath, irregular heartbeats, faster heartbeats, dizziness, nausea and sweating.

Here’s Good News for Your Heart

Changes in your lifestyle – diet, exercise, stress management – can prevent, control and even reverse many of these problems to help you have a healthy heart.

To bypass heart disease and to have a healthy heart, start by cleaning up your lifestyle. Stop smoking, cut out caffeine and sugar, manage your alcohol consumption, decrease stress, exercise regularly and drink lots of water – it’s good for your heart.

For next, it’s time to switch to a whole food plan. Eat low glycemic carbohydrates, more whole grains, colorful fruits, vegetables and other fiber rich, nutritious foods.

Also, it’s a good idea to lower your fat intake to around 25% of daily calories. Avoid all processed fats. Stick with extra virgin olive oil and very small amounts of butter instead.

But, even when you do the best you can, it’s next to impossible, to get everything you need from the foods you eat. This is where whole food supplements can help.

Important Supplements for Heart Health

Start with a basic, natural whole food multiple. To this add extra nutrients, such as natural vitamins B, C and E (excellent for cardiovascular health).

Certain B vitamins, for example, help manage the homocyteine cycle. But make sure your B vitamins are in a balanced B complex that includes the whole vitamin B family (isolating one B vitamin can prevent the efficient uptake of all the others).

Omega 3 fish oil that’s high in EPA and DHA has also been proven to have many benefits for heart health and should be part of everyone’s daily nutritional program.

According to the Mayo Clinic (and every other authority for that matter), there has been an upswing in coronary disease over the last 20 years. In fact, a recent study found clogged arteries in young adults, age 16 on up – suggesting heart disease doesn’t only affect men and women in their 50s and 60s. The latest findings mark the first shift since the mid-1960s, when a decline in heart disease began.

In the study, researchers from the Mayo Clinic and University of British Columbia reported that of 515 people, ages 16-64, 82% (425 persons) had “a degree of coronary artery atherosclerosis assessed at autopsy.

The researchers stated that 83% of that group had signs of coronary artery disease (CAD) and around 8% had a high level of the disease. Their 23-year analysis demonstrated three categories of decline: high level, any level, and average degree of CAD. Yet, the degree of these declines stopped after 1995 and may have actually headed upward- after the year 2000.

It is little surprise that there has also been a corresponding rise in obesity and diabetes rates during this same time frame. And the link between obesity, diabetes, and heart disease has already been established through relationships such as Syndrome X.

The introduction of computers and a more sedentary lifestyle, the growth of fast food chains and larger portion sizes, reduced physical education in schools and increased consumption of high-fructose corn syrup have massively contributed to the obesity explosion; which has now become an epidemic in North America.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that in 2003, just over a million American men died. Of these deaths, approximately 80% died of heart disease or one of the nine other leading causes of death among American men (cancer, unintentional injuries, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/COPD, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, suicide, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s disease).

The American Heart Association revealed that over 410,000 men died of cardiovascular disease in 2004 and about one-fourth of all heart disease-related deaths occur in men, 35-65. Men typically develop heart disease 10-15 years earlier than women- consequently dying in their prime.

Surprisingly, heart patients rarely change their diet. You’d think they would considering they just suffered a heart attack but apparently old habits die hard. A February 11 Reuters article demonstrates this finding. Dr. Yunsheng Ma of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, conducted a follow-up study of 555 heart disease patients for a year. He and his colleagues discovered that few met “recommendations for fruit, vegetable and fiber intake and were eating a ‘disturbing’ amount of trans fat.”

According to the article, researchers used the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), a measurement of heart-healthy eating, including “fruit and vegetable consumption, amount of trans fat consumed, and ratio of white-to-red meat eaten.”

• The average score was 30.8-out of 80

• Only 12.4% at five or more vegetable servings daily

• Only 7.8% at four or more servings of fruit daily

• Less than 8% met cereal fiber recommendations

• Only 50% exercised for at least 20 minutes at least once in the past 3 months

One of the problems is only 20% had cardiac rehabilitation following an event; those that did, their programs typically focused on exercise, not nutrition.

Keeping Your Heart Healthy

Regardless of your age, you need to start making healthier lifestyle changes now. Here are a number of preventive steps you can take:

• Stop smoking or using tobacco products

• Eat a varied diet rich in living fruits and vegetables.

• Minimize consumption of animal fats, trans-fat, and cooked plant fats.

• Minimize consumption of refined sugars.

• Maintain a healthy weight

• Exercise at least 30 minutes every day

• Have your cholesterol and blood pressure tested

• Diabetics should keep blood sugar under control through proper nutrition, regular exercise, and positive lifestyle habits.

Doctors now know that heart disease is so deadly for women that their chances of dying from it are one in two. That means basically that either you or your best girlfriend is likely to die of a heart attack, stroke , or related heart problem. Doctors have traditionally used a one-size-fits-all approach to identifying and diagnosing heart disease. In this view, women often lack the “classic” signs of reduced blood flow to part of the heart, a condition known as ischemia. Doctors and patients often attribute chest pains in women to noncardiac causes, leading to misinterpretation of their condition. Men usually experience crushing chest pain during a heart attack.

Cardiovascular disease encompasses the diseases of the heart and the blood vessels. These develop and progress slowly over our lifetime and often without symptoms. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for more deaths than the next seven causes of death in women combined, including all forms of cancer. Since 1984, men have experienced a decline in deaths due to CVD; women have not. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one killer of women in the United States. Long thought of as primarily affecting men, we now know that CVD—including heart disease, hypertension, and stroke—also affects a substantial number of women.

Estrogen provides a beneficial effect on the arteries. When estrogen production slows down, women lose that protective effect,” Even so, Kusler adds, women in their 30s and 40s still experience heart attacks. Estrogen serves as protection against heart disease in women, therefore once a woman has gone through menopause her risk increases dramatically.

Risk of coronary events begins to decline within months of stopping smoking and reaches the level of persons who have never smoked within 3 to 5 years. Sadly, though, smoking cessation rates have declined more slowly among women than men. Risk was not associated with dose or duration of use of estrogen and did not persist after oral contraceptives were discontinued.

African Americans are at substantially higher risk for death from CVD than are whites. This difference is attributable in part to a greater risk for strokes and a higher prevalence of high blood pressure among African Americans. African American and Hispanic women, who are at higher risk of heart disease than white women, continue to have lower rates of awareness.

Aspirin therapy is recommended for women over age 65 to prevent heart attack and stroke as long as blood pressure is controlled and the benefit is likely to outweigh the risk of gastrointestinal side effects. Regular use of aspirin is not recommended for healthy women under age 65 to prevent heart attacks. Aspirin treatment reduced risk of subsequent cardiovascular events by about 25%. Lipid-lowering therapy also appears to provide substantial benefit in secondary prevention in women. Aspirin has also been shown to be of preventive benefit in women to reduce the incidence of coronary artery disease and strokes. In women with multiple risk factors for coronary artery disease, a dose of 325 mg per day is recommended, while in lower-risk women, 81 mg is probably sufficient.

Heart attack signs in women, mind you, can be different from men……

Don’t be surprised that the classic sudden, violent chest convulsions you see on TV or movie may not be what most women experience when they have a heart attack.

Yes, this is said a a common heart attack symptom; studies however reveal that it might be more common with men than with women.

If that’s the case, what heart attack signs you look for now?

First thing first, the signs could be there but they could be quite subtle. Subtle in the sense that you may experience early symptoms of heart distress in the days, weeks or even months prior to an attack, but you don’t notice them or just ignore them or you just brush them aside as a “small matter” thing because they’re nothing out of the ordinary…..

The most common signs that you may think are “nothing out of the ordinary” but could be subtle heart attack signs – fatigue and sleep disturbance.

Fatigue

Well, fatigue is common enough, right? Usually, when you feel fatigued, you would associate it with reasons like: you don’t have enough sleep or you’re sick; or you’re on medication or you’re affected by hot weather.

However, if you experience tremendous fatigue, it’s time to be vigilant already. Don’t treat this type of fatigue as something you usually go through.

This fatigue warning may occur as early as 1 month prior to an attack, so it gives you enough time to seek medical help to determine the cause.

A recent study also revealed that as high as 70% of the women surveyed who had a heart attack experienced marked fatigue in the days or weeks prior to their attacks.

Sleep Disturbance

Well, this is another “common thing” you think you experience perhaps due to stress, hormonal changes or things that bother you (e.g. work in the office; family matters; demand from husband and children…..).

You would think nothing of it because it’s not something unusual…..

Again, I want to say that if you experience unusual and prolonged sleep disturbance (for instance: you’ve difficulty falling asleep; you wake up way before the hour you’re supposed to wake up; you get up many times during the night to frequent the toilet….), be on a look out already as this could be a sign of heart attack.

A recent study revealed that almost half of the women who had recently suffered a heart attack also experienced sleep disturbances in the days or weeks leading up to their attacks.

So how do you know if the signs are for real?

2 ways to help you know this:

• If you’ve risk factors for heart disease (factors like obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol), you should be especially vigilant already in monitoring how you feel and if you suspect you’re having the signs, seek medical help fast

• Your aches and pains and your normal reactions to foods and activities, take notice of them. They would help you to recognize when something truly is amiss

You have been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy or congestive heart failure and there’s a possibility that you will be put on the heart transplant list. This can be very frightening to most of us! How did we get to this point in the first place?

Maybe it was lack of all the prescription drugs your doctor is now giving you. For some reason I don’ think that was why. The prescription drugs, as good as they are for helping your heart function well now, won’t be able to sustain the heart functions in the long run.

If you injured your leg muscles and couldn’t walk, would you use a crutch for the rest of your life or would you try physical therapy? You are allowing your leg muscles to get stronger and heal by using them with physical therapy. If you were to use a crutch from now on and never try to walk, you would certainly stay crippled.

Prescription drugs are like a crutch. They can only help for a certain amount of time and then your heart will eventually get weaker. The reason this happens is that your heart is not allowed to function on its own because of the drugs intervention. So then it doesn’t have a chance of getting stronger and healthier.

Taking just prescription drugs for treatment, hasn’t shown to heal cardiomyopathy. The common belief of the general public for years is that all you need to do is take a prescription drugs prescribed from your physician for most all of your health problems. Prescription drugs are a big business with hidden discrepancies. The prescribed drugs have not been the complete answer for the good of the patient’s health or healing. This is hurting the general public, both in their success of cardiomyopathy treatment, or any other major illness outcome. Not to mention the outrageous prescription drug prices!

It has been said that “you are what you eat.” That really rings true because your body can get run down or has a more difficult time fighting off even the common cold, if your diet mainly consists of junk food and excess sugar. In this case your heart was more than likely lacking important nutrients to keep it healthy. Your heart failure was a result of years of not feeding it the right nutrition.

It is up to you to help get back on the road to recovery with the recommended vitamins and nutrients. Remember, your cardiologist won’t mention nutrition along with your prescription drug treatment. They are not trained to incorporate that into the congestive heart failure or cardiomyopathy treatment.

Prescription drugs are not the complete answer for cardiomyopathy. Get correct nutritional information, and achieve the power you need to help you and your cardiomyopathy on the road to better health. You can stop worrying and start doing something about your cardiomyopathy treatment today!

There are many types of heart disease, but this article will explore five types that are common to happen. Hopefully, this article can add your knowledge concerning this leading cause of death disease.

#1 Congenital heart disease

There is a fallacy of thinking that many people do when they believe that all heart diseases are brought about by outside factors or that it needs some periods of time for the disease to build up. This is, of course, not true as one of the most common types is congenital heart disease.

The term congenital or hereditary heart disease refers to heart disease which is passed down through the family, and this is considered as being a congenital type as it is principally inevitable and unpreventable. If you have an account of early heart problem in your family then you also are at danger for congenital heart disease.

The most first-degree family members that you have who have endured from heart problem, such as your mother, father, brother, sister and so on, in particular those who experienced it at a younger age, the higher your risk of getting it as well.

Although congenital heart disease can be caused by many factors, some of them are actually preventable. For example if heart problem is clustering in your family, then it may just be because of the way that your family lives, including unhealthy practices such as poor diet, little or no exercise, and smoking. All of these aspects can contribute to heart problem and can create the sequence of congenital heart disease.

# 2 Congestive heart failure

Congestive heart failure is when the heart does not pump adequate blood to the other organs in the body. Congestive heart failure can often result from heart problem and constricted arteries. Congestive heart failure results in a heart which works a lot less efficiently than it should and can make further problems. Symptoms regularly consist of swelling and edema, shortness of breath, and kidney problems which in turn can lead to mysterious weight gain. Even elevated blood pressure and alcohol abuse can lead to congestive heart failure.

A patient may be examined for congestive heart failure if they have suffered from heart problem in the past, are alcoholic, have a family history of heart problems or show one or all of the symptoms that are caused by congestive heart failure. There are choices of examinations that aid a doctor in diagnosing this heart crisis. Treatment should begin without delay, starting with changes to diet and exercise, as patients should abolish salt from the diet altogether and sternly limit their fluid intake. Further treatment should be done by a professional.

#3 Coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease is the most frequent type of heart problem of all, and is also the leading reason of heart attacks. Coronary heart disease is a term that refers to damage to the heart that happens because its blood supply is decreased, and what happens here is that fatty deposits build up on the linings of the blood vessels that provide the heart muscles with blood, resulting in them narrowing. This narrowing decreases the blood supply to the heart muscles and causes pain that is identified as angina.

There are a few factors which are considered as being responsible causes of coronary heart disease. One in particular is high cholesterol that can increase fat concentration in your blood and create the building up of fatty deposits. Another one of the major factors of coronary heart disease is cigarette and tobacco smoke, as a smoker’s risk of getting heart problem is two times that of a nonsmoker, and studies have actually revealed that after five years of quitting smoking, the risk of developing heart problem is the same as that of someone who had never smoked in their life.

#4 Pulmonary heart disease

Pulmonary heart disease is a disease that comes from a lung, or pulmonary, disorder, or a complication of lung problems where the blood flow into the lungs is slowed or even totally blocked, resulting in increased pressure on the lungs. There are a number of different symptoms that typically come with pulmonary heart disease, such as shortness of breath, syncope, dyspnoea, and chest pain.

It is a state which is often misdiagnosed, and has frequently progressed to late stages by the time that it is actually correctly diagnosed. It has been previously chronic and untreatable with a poor survival rate. However, there are now numerous new treatments which are accessible which have extensively improved the overall prognosis of this disease.

#5 Rheumatic heart disease

Rheumatic heart disease frequently derives from strep throat infections. This can be a reason for alarm for many because strep throat, while often preventable, is a quite common condition that affects many people who do not treat a minor sore throat infection in time. However, there is no reason to be because rheumatic heart disease that comes from strep throat is fairly rare. Actually, the sheer volume of cases of rheumatic heart disease has decreased considerably since the 1960’s.

If rheumatic fever, which happens due to chronic strep throat, is contracted and leads to rheumatic heart disease, the situation can be treated in a way that is much easier than the common treatments for other types of heart problem. This treatment usually involves taking cortisteroid anti-inflammatory medication to reverse any possible cardiac problems the fever might make. This does not rule out the risk for the requirement for more advanced treatment such as surgery, but it does signify the probability for a simple, yet effective treatment.