HEART

 

 What is Heart ?

A hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood through the circulatory system by rhythmic contraction and dilation. In vertebrates there...
The region of the chest above the heart.

What Is Heart Failure?

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart can't pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. In some cases, the heart can't fill with enough blood. In other cases, the heart can't pump blood to the rest of the body with enough force. Some people have both problems.

The term "heart failure" doesn't mean that your heart has stopped or is about to stop working. However, heart failure is a serious condition that requires medical care.

Heart Overview:

Heart failure develops over time as the heart's pumping action grows weaker. The condition can affect the right side of the heart only, or it can affect both sides of the heart. Most cases involve both sides of the heart.

Right-side heart failure occurs if the heart can't pump enough blood to the lungs to pick up oxygen. Left-side heart failure occurs if the heart can't pump enough oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body.

Right-side heart failure may cause fluid to build up in the feet, ankles, legs, liver, abdomen, and the veins in the neck. Right-side and left-side heart failure also may cause shortness of breath and fatigue (tiredness).

The leading causes of heart failure are diseases that damage the heart. Examples include coronary heart disease (CHD), high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Heart Outlook

Heart failure is a very common condition. About 5.8 million people in the United States have heart failure.

Both children and adults can have the condition, although the symptoms and treatments differ. This article focuses on heart failure in adults.

Currently, heart failure has no cure. However, treatments—such as medicines and lifestyle changes—can help people who have the condition live longer and more active lives. Researchers continue to study new ways to treat heart failure and its complications.

Heart Working That Muscle

heart imageYour heart is really a muscle. It's located a little to the left of the middle of your chest, and it's about the size of your fist. There are lots of muscles all over your body — in your arms, in your legs, in your back, even in your behind.

But the heart muscle is special because of what it does. The heart sends blood around your body. The blood provides your body with the oxygen and nutrients it needs. It also carries away waste.

Your heart is sort of like a pump, or two pumps in one. The right side of your heart receives blood from the body and pumps it to the lungs. The left side of the heart does the exact opposite: It receives blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body.

The Heart and How It Works

The heart is a strong muscle about the size of your fist that pumps blood around the body. It sits inside the chest and is protected by the ribcage. The heart has four different areas, or chambers. These chambers are connected to each other by valves that control how much blood enters each chamber at any one time. The valves open and shut with every beat. As the valves shut to control the flow of blood through the heart, they make the sound you recognize as your heartbeat.

Depending on a person's age, the heart beats about 60 to 120 times every minute. Each heartbeat is really two separate sounds: lub-dub, lub-dub. Your heart goes "lub" with the closing of the valves that control blood flow from the upper chambers to the lower chambers. Then, as the valves controlling blood going out of the heart close, your heart goes "dub."

What Happens If You Have a Murmur?

More than half of all children have a heart murmur at some time in their lives and most heart murmurs don't mean anything is wrong. Doctors may call these "innocent," "functional," or "normal" murmurs. They are caused by blood rushing through the valves in a normal heart and are nothing to worry about.

One common type of normal murmur is Still's murmur, named for the doctor who first described it. This murmur is most often heard in healthy kids 3 to 7 years old.

A normal murmur can get louder when the blood flows faster through the heart, like when kids have a fever or run around. That's because an increase in body temperature or activity makes the heart pump more blood. When your temperature goes down, the murmur may get quieter or even disappear.

It can be easier to hear heart murmurs in kids because they have less fat, muscle, and bone between the murmur and the doctor's stethoscope. Many normal murmurs become harder to hear as children grow older, and some eventually disappear.

Even though most murmurs do not mean anything is wrong, sometimes a heart problem can cause a murmur. The heart may have a hole in it, a heart valve may leak, or a valve may not open all the way. If your doctor thinks your heart murmur could be due to a heart problem, you will need to see a pediatric cardiologist (say: pee-dee-AT-rik car-dee-OL-uh-jist). This kind of doctor knows a lot about children's hearts.

Coronary heart disease (CHD) :Heart

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the UK's biggest killer, causing around 82,000 deaths each year. About one in five men and one in eight women die from the disease.

In the UK, there are an estimated 2.7m people living with the condition and 2m people affected by angina (the most common symptom of coronary heart disease).

CHD generally affects more men than women, but from the age of 50 the chances of developing CHD are similar for men and women.

As well as angina (chest pain), the main symptoms of CHD are heart attacks and heart failure. However, not everyone has the same symptoms and some people may not have any before CHD is diagnosed.

CHD is sometimes called ischaemic heart disease.

Why does coronary heart disease happen?

Coronary heart disease is the term that describes what happens when your heart's blood supply is blocked or interrupted by a build-up of fatty substances in the coronary arteries.

Over time, the walls of your arteries can become furred up with fatty deposits. This process is known as atherosclerosis and the fatty deposits are called atheroma.

Atherosclerosis can be caused by lifestyle habits and other conditions, such as:

    smoking
    high cholesterol
    high blood pressure (hypertension)
    diabetes
Other risk factors for developing atherosclerosis include:

    being obese or overweight
    having a family history of CHD – the risk is increased if you have a male relative with CHD under 55 or a female relative under 65

Heart Attack

A heart attack is a serious medical emergency in which the supply of blood to the heart is suddenly blocked, usually by a blood clot. Lack of blood to the heart can seriously damage the heart muscle.

A heart attack is known medically as a myocardial infarction or MI.

Heart Attack Symptoms can include:

chest pain: the chest can feel like it is being pressed or squeezed by a heavy object, and pain can radiate from the chest to the jaw, neck, arms and back

shortness of breath

feeling weak and/or lightheaded

overwhelming feeling of anxiety

It is important to stress that not everyone experiences severe chest pain; often the pain can be mild and mistaken for indigestion.

It is the combination of symptoms that is important in determining whether a person is having a heart attack, and not the severity of chest pain.