Important Facts About Heart Disease

The term heart disease is rather general, a sort of umbrella term which covers a number of different diseases that affect the heart, including coronary artery disease, pulmonary heart disease, congestive heart failure and angina. There are many different facts about heart disease that are important to know, regardless of whether or not you yourself have developed a heart disease.

Facts About Heart Disease

One of the most important facts about heart disease involves the alarming statistics of heart disease in this country. For instance: 50 million suffer from high blood pressure, 12 million suffer from coronary heart disease, 6.2 million suffer from angina pectoris, 7 million suffer from heart attacks, 4.4 million suffer from strokes, 1.8 million suffer from rheumatic heart disease/fever, and 1 million suffer from congenital cardiovascular defects.

As well, of the 50 Americans who have high blood pressure 35 percent do not even know they have it, about every 29 seconds an American will suffer from a coronary event, at least 250,000 people each year die of heart attacks before they reach the hospital, half of all heart attack victims wait more than two hours before getting help, and cardiovascular diseases are the number one killer of both men and women.

Another of the most important facts about heart disease involves the actual causes of heart disease. The most major cause is a thickening of the inside walls of the coronary arteries, and this thickening narrows the space through which blood can flow, thus decreasing and sometimes even completely blocking the supply of oxygen to the heart.

High blood pressure and high cholesterol are also considered as being major causes of heart disease, and on average, each of these actually doubles your chances of developing heart disease at some point in your lifetime. Obesity and inactivity are two other factors which are likely to cause heart disease, and being overweight especially increases the likelihood of you developing some type of heart disease.

Learning about the facts of heart disease is incredibly important, even if you have not yet developed heart disease because then you will be more informed and knowledgeable and you will be able to best protect yourself against getting heart disease in the future. Although there is no surefire way of preventing yourself from developing heart disease, by maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle you can guard yourself against it and other heart and health conditions, and thus you will be benefiting yourself in more ways than one.

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