What is heart disease?

"Heart disease" can have take a lot of different shapes and forms depending on what is causing it.  It is kind of like a "blanket term" that encompasses all sorts of things that can go wrong with the ol' ticker.

Here are some examples of different types of heart diseases and their causes.

• Coronary Heart Disease -- this is where you end up with lots of plaque on your arteries and it impedes the blood flowing to the heart.  Close to 1/2 million people in the US die of this a year.


• Cardiomyopathy -- this is where your heart muscle  actually starts to fail and can be caused by a lot of reasons.   Some are genetic/hereditary, some are not.


• Cardiovascular disease -- especially affects the veins and arteries that supply the heart. 


• Ischaemic heart disease -- This is a disease that affects the heart's ability to supply the other organs with blood.


• Heart failure -- can be caused by lots of things, but basically means that the heart cannot fill with, or supply, enough blood to the rest of the body.


• Hypertensive heart disease -- failure of the heart due to conditions resulting from high blood pressure.


• Inflamatory heart disease -- This is when the tissue that surrounds the heart (or the heart itself) becomes inflamed and the heart can no longer do its job.


• Valvular heart disease -- This is when the valves of the heart don't open and close like they should.

This list isn't meant to be all inclusive, and you would have to research more specifically those that were of interest to you, but I think it gives you an overview of the types of problems that can affect your love-pump.  Your mom was right...eat your veggies, get lots of exercise, and say no to supersizing : )