Heart Disease
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1.27 Though ischemic stroke is more common accounting for 80% of the stroke deaths, haemorrhagic stroke is more lethal of the two.
1.28 Transient Ischemic Stroke – Before a major stroke, about one in three people experience Transient Ischemic Stroke (TIA) or “mini stroke”. Most people think of stroke as a sudden, catastrophic event like paralysis. But a more common event is the “silent” ministroke termed as Transient Ischemic Attack or TIA. Ministroke is exactly like heart attack, but the manifestations are very different. The prominent sign of heart attack is chest pain but there is no chest pain in the case of ministroke or stroke. Single ministroke often doesn’t cause any symptoms at all, but over time more such strokes can chip away at your ability to function normally. Ministroke can be characterised by symptoms as mild as dizziness just lasting a few seconds or minutes. A ministroke happens when a tiny clot – may be a piece of plaque that breaks away from a blood vessel in your arm or leg – meanders its way to the brain and plugs up a capillary, preventing oxygen-rich blood for reaching the tissue on the other side. Almost instantly, a pin-size part of the brain dies but one does not even know it happened. The ministrokes are more of a concern because they may at times be ignored by the patient, but they are the harbingers of a full-fledged deadly stroke and a timely treatment should provide dramatic relief.
2. CAUSES/RISK FACTORS FOR CORONARY HEART DISEASE
Introduction
2.1 A healthy heart means a sound body, mind and spirit. Sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy eating habits, smoking, stress, obesity with its association as a risk factor for diabetes, high blood cholesterol, hypertension are the leading causes of heart disease and stroke. These unhealthy behaviours are being adopted at an alarmingly early age and becoming increasingly common among children and teenagers.
2.2 Former US President Bill Clinton, treated by some of the best doctors in America when he was in the White House, didn’t know a heart attack was waiting to happen. How could that be, and what does it say for the rest of us? Determining heart attack risk is a tricky thing. Each of us has a different susceptibility to cardiovascular disease. Some people will live to be 100 on burgers and milk shakes, while a few athletic vegetarians will have heart attacks at 35. Your fitness level and what you eat play a role, of course, and so do genes and gender. But gender helps only for a while. Women have fewer heart attacks than men before they reach menopause because of the beneficial effects of oestrogen and also due to the protection offered by the blood loss during the menstrual cycle. However, they catch up within a few years.
2.3 The most common cause of heart disease is the narrowing, or blockage of the coronary arteries, which supply blood to the heart. Complete blockage of the coronary arteries results in deficient oxygenation and nutrient supply to the heart tissues, leading to damage and death of tissue, which is known as myocardial refraction or heart attack.
2.4 When people develop heart disease they stop eating eggs, give up butter and switch to margarine. The so-called-healthy margarine is nutritionally worse than butter as it contains hydrogenated fats or trans fatty acids. (These are unnatural fats, which raise total cholesterol, reduce good cholesterol and make the blood sticky.) Little do they realise that it’s not just the butter and eggs, which are the culprits. All through their lives they have been eating out in restaurants/fast food outlets consuming huge unhealthy amounts of high-fat, high-calorie, low-fibre, refined, fried and processed junk foods/beverages laden with harmful chemical additives and preservatives, excessive sugar and salt. They have been poisoned by tobacco, alcohol and drugs. They have developed deficiencies of vitamins and minerals like selenium, zinc, magnesium, chromium etc. Heart disease develops after a lifetime of poor eating habits coupled with wrong genetics and sedentary lifestyle.
