What is Heart Disease? (Article -01)

The heart is the organ that pumps blood, with its life-giving oxygen and nutrients, to all tissues of the body. If the pumping action of the heart becomes inefficient, vital organs like the brain and kidneys suffer.And if the heart stops working altogether, death occur within minutes. Life itself is completely dependent on the efficient operation of the heart. 

There are many kinds of heart disease, and they can affect the heart in several ways. But the ultimate problem with all varieties of heart disease is that, in one way or another, they can disrupt the vital pumping action of the heart. and kidneys suffer.And if the heart stops working altogether, death occur within minutes. Life itself is completely dependent on the efficient operation of the heart. 

 

Valvular Heart Disease:

While there are many causes of valvular heart disease (including rheumatic fever, congenital heart disease, cardiac dilation, and age-related calcification of the valves), whatever the cause, heart valve problems are specially manifested in one of two ways. Either the valve openings become too narrow and blood has a difficult time crossing the valves (i.e., stenosis), or the valves become incompetent, allowing blood to leak across the valves when they are supposed to be closed (i.e., regurgitation). Valvular stenosis causes “damming up” of the blood behind the valve. This damming up of blood leads to increased pressure in the cardiac chambers behind the valve. 

Valvular regurgitation allows blood to wash backwards across the valve when the valve should be closed. This extra volume of blood produced by this backwash causes dilation of the cardiac chambers receiving the extra blood.

Both increased pressures and increased blood volume in any of the cardiac chambers can eventually produce permanent weakening of the cardiac muscle, and can ultimately lead to heart failure. Either stenosis or regurgitation in a cardiac valve causes turbulence of blood flow, and that turbulence is detected as a “heart murmur” when the doctor listens to the heart with a stethoscope. specially, heart valve problems can be readily diagnosed by performing an echo cardiogram.