Coronary Heart Disease

Coronary Heart Disease

Description of the Disease

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a disease which involves blockage or even thinning of coronary arteries. As a matter of fact, this diseased is primarily caused by atherosclerosis, which means tightening or clogging of the arteries due to the accumulation of cholesterol and fatty particles - plaques, inside the walls of arteries. When the blood supply becomes lessened, there happens an inadequacy of oxygen and essential nutrients in the heart. However, this state often causes pain in the chest, which is known as angina. When the blood supply to the heart becomes acutely less or totally cut out, then the demand of blood becomes larger than supply, this deficit of blood supply becomes the root of heart attack (USDHHS, 2009).

There are many factors that cause the coronary heart diseases. Different technologies are available to diagnose this type of disease at an early stage. However, after diagnosing this kind of disease, there arises an absolute need for the change the lifestyle or even before diagnosing to mitigate its occurrence. In this paper the primary discussion would be on the risk factor, lifestyle factors for students and more importantly on the support and treatment of the disease.

Risk factors for the disease

There are many factors that cause the coronary heart disease, among them the well determined risks factors are smoking, obesity, family history, diabetes, hypertension, and lack of physical exercise, high consumption of alcohol, stress and hyperlipdemia. After quantifying these factors, association of smoking is 54% found in the patients of coronary heart diseases, while the chunk of obesity is 20%. Moreover lack of physical exercise is termed at 8 to 12 percent in the cases of the patients suffering from this disease (Khot et. al., 2003).

Stress is also one of the contributing factors in the cause of coronary heart disease, however; its role is meager at about 4% of the cases. The primary cause of the coronary heart disease is linked with the diameter of the blood vessels. However, it was found in a study that the women who did not have any stress at the work were found of having an increased diameter of the blood vessels leading to reduction in the atherosclerosis and ultimately less chances of heart attack. In contrast to that, women who had enhanced level of work level stress found to have decreased diameter of the blood vessels and were more vulnerable to coronary heart disease.

Furthermore, the people who are categorized as of having type A behavior pattern, those whose personality attributes are competitiveness, impatience, time urgency and hostility, were having enhanced risks of coronary heart disease (Khot et. al., 2003).

Moreover, the family history is also one of the vital factors that promote this kind of disease. Parental history of high blood pressure is more vulnerable to the risk of heart disease. As a matter of fact, person whose parents are suffering from hypertension, have enhanced diastolic and systolic blood pressure, when contrasted with the persons ...