Heart Disease - Heart Disease

Heart disease, also known as cardiovascular disease, is a group of diseases and conditions that adversely affect the heart and blood vessels. These include coronary artery disease (CAD) also known as coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertension (high blood pressure), peripheral vascular disease (PVD), congestive heart failure (CHF), and congenital heart diseases.

Heart disease has been in the public health arena since around 1920 and is the current leading cause of death for both men and women across all ethnic and racial groups in the United States. Nearly 62 million Americans have some form of cardiovascular disease and it kills 2600 people in this country everyday. That's an average of 1 death every 33 seconds. In fact heart disease kills almost as many people in the U.S. as the next seven leading causes of death combined. The majority of deaths by heart attack occur before the person reaches the emergency room to be treated. This further emphasizes the need for the prevention of heart disease.

Even though heart disease has been at the forefront of public health concerns for many years, doctors, nurses, and medical researchers cannot assume that those newly diagnosed with cardiovascular disease have any knowledge of this disease or of the treatment options available to them, regardless of their education or socioeconomic status. The primary prevention of this disease is a public health concern.

The approaches to preventing heart disease include implementing secondary and tertiary preventative strategies. Secondary prevention behaviors reduce the effects of heart disease. For cardiovascular disease, reducing risk factors can help minimize negative health effects. The purpose of tertiary prevention is to further minimize complications or the restore the patient's health. For heart disease this may involve significant lifestyle changes combined with prescription drugs and other medical interventions.

There are risk factors for cardiovascular disease that are modifiable or completely preventable. Unfortunately over 80% of American adults have at least one major risk factor. There are two groups of risk factors: modifiable, or factors that can be changed or prevented and non-modifiable or factors that we have no control over.

Many people are scared not only of their mortality as caused by cardiovascular disease but also the array of lifestyle modifications they must make to prevent or reverse its deadly effects. The increase in public education and awareness of the effects of heart disease has allowed many restaurants and resorts to offer healthy food choices that are "heart friendly". This has allowed many of those who suffer from these diseases the ability to still enjoy social events and outings with friends and family.

The ability to successfully cope with heart disease requires an optimistic attitude and a desire to live a healthy lifestyle that mitigates the effects of this disease.