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There are a number of common things that can go wrong with your heart and circulatory system. They can be quite minor or life threatening. Up to a third of adult deaths in the UK alone are linked to cardiovascular disease.
Cardiovascular diseases include:
The build-up of plaque in atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis is the cause of many serious cardiovascular conditions including:
When patients have symptoms which might be caused by heart disease, doctors need ways of finding out what is going on in the heart.
One way to investigate the heart is to take an angiogram. A dye which shows up on X-rays is injected into the blood stream. Images taken as it flows through the coronary arteries show up any blockages.
Another way to investigate the heart is to use an ECG (electrocardiogram). This machine gives images of the electrical activity of the heart. Doctors can use this to see how the heart is beating.
Angiograms show up a blocked coronary artery
ECGs are used to diagnose heart disease
Many factors increase your risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Many of them are exactly the same as the risk factors for high blood pressure! Some of them you can do nothing about - they are shown in black. Some of them (shown in red) are in your hands - you have the power to reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD):
The relationship between obesity and coronary heart disease is shown in the graph below: