"WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD HEARTS"
What is heart disease? What causes it?
This is not an easy question to answer because there is no single entity you can point to and call 'heart disease'. There are many cardiac and circulatory disorders, with a range of causes involving hereditary or environmental factors, or both. Sometimes there are lots of causes for a single condition, each of them adding to the total picture and the ultimate heart problem. 'Multifactorial' is the term doctors use to describe the causes of these heart diseases. This is the case with the most important one of all - coronary heart disease - as we shall soon see.
If you skim through the medical literature of just the past few years, you'll find the researchers have been ranging far and wide to try and find out whether there is one overwhelmingly important element which has brought about the epidemic of heart disease in the countries of the western world. Some scientists think, heart disease is mainly caused by things we do, others by things we are. Still others think that, to some extent, we are the innocent victims of factors outside our control. This, however, is not a very widely held view...
What do these studies tell us ?
A lot of them point again and again to the best - known and what are considered the major, risk factors for those heart diseases which appear to be acquired and avoidable: diets leading to high levels of body cholesterol, smoking, drinking, lack of exercise, stress, obesity, high blood pressure - all of which we'll discuss in some length later on.
Beyond these, new reports come out regularly, and some make newspaper headlines. Some underline the obvious, while others break new ground or border on the exotic. Many of them raise more questions than they look to answer. For example:
• Poverty and heart disease are related. According to one study, heart disease death rates increase as family come decline. What's the reason for this? According to one epidemiologist, less well-to-do people have not profited by good advice to give up bad habits such as smoking, overeating and avoiding exercise, while the best of have modified their behavior and are more fitness-conscious.
• Sickle cell anemia may, it is thought, cause heart attacks without any coronary atherosclerosis (fatty deposits on coronary artery walls) being involved. Scientist believes that in some black people (that portion of the population which has this condition almost exclusively) the red blood cells that become sickle - shaped (crescent) during attacks may keep the heart muscle from receiving adequate oxygen supplies, leading to oxygen starvation and ultimately myocardial infarction (known most commonly as a heart attack).
• Numerous studies indicate that noise - industrial, environmental, etc. - may cause high blood pressure and heart problems. People who live near an airport or under runways, according to one study, are more likely to have high blood pressure, high heart rate, and a number of other cardiovascular changes. And, worst of all, children seem to be the most affected by this dangerous noise pollution.
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