The human heart is an incredibly efficient marvel of a pump. It
works day in and day out, contracting a hundred thousand
times a day to
pump five hundred thousand liters of blood into body''s circulation. For
this colossal task, it needs fuel for its untiring muscles.It
receives this fuel not from the blood passing through its four
chambers, but through two major
arteries - the coronaries. Buried in
the tissues of the heart muscle, ramifying it with their many branches,
the coronaries provide the heart with the elixir of life - vital oxygen
and glucose - through the blood flowing in them.For the heart
to stay in the pink of its health, the
coronary vessels must remain
efficient at all times, catering to all its needs. Unless they do so,
problems loom.Yet, for a variety of reasons, fatty deposits
begin building up in the inner walls of coronary arteries. By and by,
increasing amounts of fat is laid down, making the arteries narrower.
The amount of blood that can flow through them is correspondingly
reduced.This flow of blood becomes so poor in many people that
the heart is quite incapable of carrying out its normal function.
Starved of vital nourishment, the heart finds it’s increasingly
difficult to cope with sudden extra workload. Such situations can occur
in moments of increased physical and emotional activity.In this
state of affairs that is generally referred to as coronary heart
disease. Doctors also call it by the name of ischemic heart disease
(IHD), coronary artery disease (CAD0 and myocardial ischemia. To begin
with, whenever challenged, the heart transmits its anguish in the form
of discomfort and a sense of tightness over the middle of the chest.
This is its way of telling, ‘Enough, I can bear no more.’ it often
forces the person to stop what he is doing and take rest. This is the
well known symptom of Angina pectoris.At times, the narrowed
coronary artery may be completely blocked by a blood clot forming on
its inner roughened wall. Or, a fatty plaque or clot detached from an
upper, larger artery may travel to a narrowed tributary, suddenly
cutting off its blood flow, When this happens and a coronary artery or
its branch suffers a shutdown, the portion of the heart muscle it feeds
dies. How serious the damage would be depends on the size and position
of the plugged vessel. The larger the affected vessel, the less the
supply to that area from the other neighboring arteries (which may have
sprung up if the process had been gradual), the greater is the damage
suffered by the heart.This is heart attack, or, in the medical lingo, myocardial ischemia.Modern
living with its stress and strains, mounting tension and pressure in
everyday life, changes in the structure of the society and family
leaving little cushion for an individual’s problems and failures,
changing dietary habits, with city-folks often opting for time-saving
high-calorie, high-fat, junk food, technological advancements such as
easy modes of transport and machines, which leave little room for
physical exercise and the increase in smoking and alcohol intake, all
contribute to the bane.Yet actually, not all the rise in the
incidence of coronary heart disease is real. Atherosclerosis, or
narrowing of arteries by fat deposits, is also part of the normal
ageing process. With the increase in average life expectancy, more
people live to a ripe, old age. This has caused a natural rise in the
absolute number of patients. Also, more people, who would have been
seen as having died of an unknown cause, are being diagnosed to have
the disease, with greater awareness and better facilities of diagnosis.