Is your “heart” healthy?

  In these days of rapid economic growth and rising living standards of the people, it also brings a lot of worries to our body.  The heart is the most important organ of the body, responsible for pumping blood through blood vessels to all parts of the body. The heart muscle has a higher requirement for oxygen and nutrients to maintain function and stay alive, and the heart muscle also needs a blood supply to get blood into the heart muscle’s own arterial vessels, called coronary arteries. The heart muscle is like a pump and the coronary arteries are the pipes that supply fuel to this pump, so a blockage in the pipes supplying fuel can compromise the function of the pump.  Atherosclerosis is a disease that can occur in blood vessels throughout the body, usually in the heart, kidneys, extremities and parts of the brain. It causes narrowing or complete blockage of the corresponding arteries, and when the hardening occurs in the coronary arteries, it becomes coronary atherosclerotic heart disease, or coronary heart disease for short. The narrowing of coronary arteries reduces or blocks the blood supply to the corresponding heart muscles, thus affecting the pump function of the heart. If the blood supply is reduced to a certain level, then the corresponding heart muscles will be necrotic due to ischemia, which is called myocardial infarction, when the pump function of the heart will be greatly affected and even endanger sickness.  In fact, understanding the risk factors of coronary heart disease, and under the guidance of doctors to control the treatment, can be prevented. Risk factors include smoking, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, stress and psychological stress.  There are three main methods used to treat coronary artery disease: medications, interventional therapy and surgical bypass. All three treatments have some value and often need to complement each other and be used in combination.  The heart is a very important organ for each of us, we should take care of it and love it, keep ourselves away from risk factors and develop good habits to keep it vibrant and energetic at all times.