What's Your Heart Disease Risk?

High cholesterol, lifestyle choices, and other factors increase heart attack risk. Find out if you're likely to have a heart attack within the next 10 years.

Even though you don’t have a time machine, you do have the ability to calculate your 10-year heart illness risk. Decades of research have shown how heart illness risk factors such as high cholesterol & lifestyle choices like smoking cigarettes add up.

The National Cholesterol schooling Program (NCEP) has published a set of guidelines that is intended to help patients & doctors exactly predict heart illness risk. The greater your risk for heart illness within 10 years, the more aggressive you need to be with prevention. For example, the guidelines note that individuals who already have coronary heart illness or an equivalent health condition, such as diabetes, have a more than 20 percent risk of a heart event within 10 years. Add other risk factors, such as high cholesterol, advanced age, cigarette smoking, & a relatives history of early heart illness, & your total risk notches up.

The NCEP guidelines include charts that enable you to calculate a very specific risk score, based on your risk factors, age, & gender. For example, a 57-year-old bloke could use the charts to find out that they gets 7 points for age, 5 points for cholesterol over 280, 3 points for smoking cigarettes, & 1 point for his slightly high but treated hypertension. Adding all of them together, they has 16 points, or a 25 percent risk of a heart illness event within ten years.

The same approach is applied to diet — using the diet appendix in the guidelines, you can give yourself points for the categories of foods you eat regularly to find out whether you are eating a heart-healthy diet.

“We need to match the intensity of treatment that they recommend to any patient with that patient’s level of risk,” says Daniel Levy, MD, director of the Framingham Heart Study & professor of medicine at Boston University in Boston. This is because the changes you may must make all have some degree of risk & burden attached to them.

four times you have a lovely idea of your heart illness risk, you can make an informed decision about the steps you need to take to reduce that risk.

Abbreviations in Cardiology

A2: aortic component of the second heart sound
ABE: acute bacterial endocarditis
ABI: ankle-brachial index
ACS: acute coronary syndrome
ACE: angiotensin-converting enzyme
AF: atrial fibrillation
AI: aortic insufficiency
AMI: acute myocardial infarction
Ao: aorta
AP: action potential
AS: aortic stenosis
ASD: atrial septal defect
ASH: asymmetric septal hypertrophy
AV: aortic valve
AV node: atrioventricular node
AVNRT: atrioventricular nodal reentrant Tachycardia
AVRT: atrioventricular reentrant Tachycardia

BID: twice daily
BP: blood pressure
BPM: beats per minute
CAD: coronary artery disease
CABG: coronary artery bypass graft
CEA: carotid endarterectomy
CBB: complete heart block
CHD: congenital heart disease
CHF: congestive heart failure
CI: cardiac index
CK: creatinine kinase
CMP: cardiomyopathy
CNS: central nervous system
CO: cardiac output
CPR: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation
CSM: carotid sinus massage
CT: computed tomography
CVD: cerebrovascular disease
CVA: cerebrovascular accident
DCM: dilated cardiomyopathy
DM: diabetes mellitus
DVT: Deep venous thrombosis
ECG: electrocardiogram
EEG: electroencephalogram
EF: ejection fraction
EPS: electrophysiological study
ETT: exercise tolerance test
HB: heart block
HCM: hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
HDL: high-density lipoprotein
HF: heart failure
HIV: human immunodeficiency virus
HOCM: hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy
HR: heart rate
HTN: hypertension
IABP: intra-aortic balloon pump
ICD: implantable cardioverter-defibrillator
IDL: intermediate density lipoprotein
IE: infectious endocarditis
IHSS: idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis
INR: international normalized ratio
IVC: inferior vena cava
JVP: jugular venous pressure
LA: left atrium
LEEB: left bundle branch block
LDL: low-density lipoprotein
LMWH: low molecular weight heparin
Lp(a): lipoprotein (a)
LV: left ventricle
LVEDP: left ventricular end diastolic pressure
LVOT: left ventricular outflow tract
MAT: multi focal atrial Tachycardia
MI: myocardial infarction
MR: mitral regurgitation
MRA: magnetic resonance angiography
MRI: magnetic resonance imaging
MS: mitral stenosis
MV: mitral valve
MVP: mitral valve prolapse
NSTE: non-ST elevation (MI)
NSVT: nonsustained ventricular Tachycardia
NVE: native valve endocarditis
P2: pulmonic component of the second heart sound
PA: pulmonary artery
PAC: premature atrial complex
PAD: Peripheral arterial disease
PCN: penicillin
PCW(P): pulmonary capillary wedge (pressure)
PDA: patent ductus arteriosus
PE: Pulmonary embolism
PMI: point of maximal impulse
PPH: Primary pulmonary hypertension
PS: pulmonic stenosis
PTA: percutaneous transluminal Angioplasty
PTCA: percutaneous transluminal coronary Angioplasty
PV: pulmonary valve
PVC: premature ventricular complex
PVE: prosthetic valve endocarditis
PVR: pulmonary vascular resistance
RBBB: right bundle branch block
RA: right atrium
RCM: restrictive cardiomyopathy
RF: rheumatic fever, or radio frequency (ablation)
RHD: rheumatic heart disease
RIND: reversible ischemic neurological deficit
RV: right ventricle
RYH: right ventricular hypertrophy
RVI: right ventricular infarction
S1: first heart sound
S2: second heart sound
S3: third heart sound
S4: forth heart sound
SA: sinoatrial
SBE: subacute bacterial endocarditis
SBP: systolic blood pressure
SCD: sudden cardiac death
SIDS: sudden infant death syndrome
SLE: systemic lupus erythematosus
SND: sinus node dysfunction
SPH: secondary pulmonary hypertension
SSS: sick sinus syndrome
STE: ST elevation (MI)
SV: stroke volume
SVR: systemic vascular resistance
SVT: supraventricular Tachycardia
TAO: thromboangiitis obliterans
TdP: torsade de pointes
TEE: transesophageal echo cardiography
TG: triglyceride
TIA: transient ischemic attack
TID: three times daily
TOF: tetralogy of Fallot
TPA: tissue plasminogen activator
TR: Tricuspid regurgitation
TV: tricuspid valve
VA: unstable angina
VF: ventricular fibrillation
VLDL: very low density lipoprotein
VPC: ventricular premature complex
VSD: Ventricular septal defect
VT: ventricular Tachycardia
VTE: venous thromboembolic
WPW: Wolff- Parkinson- White

What Interventional Cardiology is

Ped Cardiology: What is Valvular Stenosis

Cardiac Rehabilitation

After you have a heart attack (also called a myocardial infarction, or MI), participation in a cardiac rehabilitation program can reduce your risk of having any more MIs, and even of dying.

"Cardiac rehabilitation" is a structured program aimed at helping you develop a heart-friendly lifestyle. Ideally, it will consist of three components: exercise, risk factor modification, and dealing with stress and depression.

Exercise Rehabilitation

Exercise may be the most important component of a cardiac rehabilitation program, because regular exercise not only directly improves your cardiovascular system, but it also helps you with weight control, improves your response to stress, and (many claim) helps you stick to your heart-healthy diet. The benefits of regular exercise after an MI are well documented. Studies show that those who participate in exercise rehabilitation achieve a significantly lower risk of mortality, and of having recurrent MIs.

While almost everyone can safely engage in exercise after an MI, deciding what's "safe" needs to be individualized. Developing a safe exercise program requires taking several factors into account - including your general physical condition, the extent of the heart attack you've had, whether you are still having angina, your weight, and the condition of your limbs and joints. Having you perform a stress test, usually on a treadmill, helps the exercise rehabilitation clinician assess all of these factors, and is normally an important part of creating an appropriate "exercise prescription" for you.

Once the initial assessment is made, your rehab clinician will work with you (and your doctor) to prescribe a safe exercise program. This prescription will include the appropriate type (walking, jogging, swimming, etc.), duration, frequency and intensity of exercise that will safely improve your heart health. Obviously, that prescription will take into account your personal preferences, and your personal constraints.

Most often after a heart attack, the first several exercise sessions will be conducted under medical supervision, possibly with cardiac monitoring. But after a few weeks, as your heart heals and your exercise capacity increases, you will begin following a home-based exercise program that, ideally, will last forever.

Lifestyle "Rehabilitation"

Most cardiac rehabilitation programs today include extensive educational sessions on modifying your cardiac risk factors, such as weight control, smoking cessation, and diet. It is important for you to attend these sessions and absorb as much information as you can. Now that you have survived your heart attack, your health depends on your taking control of those aspects of your life that can be controlled, and that will go a long way toward determining your long-term outcome.

 Psychosocial "Rehabilitation"

It is quite common to go through a period of depression or anxiety after an MI. Unfortunately, these problems can not only keep you from engaging in the exercise rehabilitation and lifestyle modifications you need to become healthy, but can also directly worsen your cardiac health.

Many cardiac rehabilitation programs employ individuals who are trained to recognize and help you work through the psychosocial issues that may inhibit your recovery. If you need more intensive therapy, they can help make the appropriate referrals for you.

Causes and diagnosis of chest pain in young females

Chest pain is one of the common complaints heard in medical OPDs as well as at the GP�s clinic. Chest pain causes a lot of anxiety in the patient as it is many a time related to �heart attack� or angina and people are quite aware of the serious consequences of the symptom. Anyone having a chest pain would first think of the heart and would like to know if he/she is having a �heart attack�.

However not all times is a chest pain necessarily originating from or caused by diseases of the heart. There are plenty of other structures in the thoracic cavity and a systematic approach is needed to arrive at the correct diagnosis or in other words to find out the �real culprit� causing the chest pain.
Of special importance is the issue of chest pain in women, as this group is less liable to get heart disease till menopause. Estrogen is said to confer a protective effect and prevents the development of atherosclerosis. Myocardial infarction or Coronary artery disease (CAD) is very rare in menstruating women. As menopause approaches and estrogen levels go down, the probability of development of CAD catches up with those in men.
Even then, there are lots of young to middle aged, menstruating women complaining of chest pain and quite distressed about it. Before I highlight the special features of this particular issue lets first review the differential diagnosis of chest pain.

Differential Diagnosis of Chest Pain

1. Angina Pectoris/Myocardial Infarction
2. Other Cardiovascular Causes

a. Possibly Ischemic Pain

1) Aortic Stenosis
2) Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
3) Severe Systemic Hypertension
4) Severe Right Ventricular Hypertension
5) Aortic Regurgitation
6) Severe Anemia/hypoxia

b. Non Ischemic in Origin

1) Aortic Dissection
2) Pericarditis
3) Mitral Valve Prolapse

3. Gastrointestinal

a. Esophageal Spasm
b. Esophageal Reflux
c. Esophageal Rupture
d. Peptic Ulcer Disease

4. Psychogenic

a. Anxiety
b. Depression
c. Cardiac Psychosis
d. Self Gain

5. Neuromusculoskeletal

a. Thoracic Outlet syndrome
b. Lesions of Cervical/Thoracic Spine
c. Costochondritis[Tietze�s Syndrome]
d. Herpes Zoster
e. Chest wall pain

6. Pulmonary

a. Pulmonary Embolus/Infarction
b. Pneumothorax
c. Pneumonia with pleural involvement

7. Pleurisy
As most patients are anxious of their chest pain being that of Heart origin, we shall first have a look at the features of Cardiac Pain.