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Heart failure signs, causes and treatment
contents
- Symptoms of heart failure
- A modern threat?
- Hunters and collectors
- Genetic adaptation
- A global question
- Management of the lifestyle
- Types of heart failure
- High blood pressure
- arteriosclerosis
- Valvular heart disease
- Shortness of breath and irregular pulse
- cardiomyopathy
- Diseases of the lung
- Thyroid disorders
- Risk factors for heart failure
- Age and gender
- Ethnicity
- Family history and genetics
- diabetes
- overweight
- Being overweight means extra work for the heart
- difficulty in breathing
- Internal inflammations
- Prevention: How to prevent heart failure
Symptoms of heart failure
The typical symptoms of heart failure are swollen limbs, breathlessness and fatigue. They are usually less dramatic than those associated with a heart attack, but also often threaten life. In the economically advanced countries, up to one in five people develop heart failure at some point in their lives.
An incipient heart failure is often not easy to recognize. Typical signs are shortness of breath, constant fatigue and exhaustion. (Image: Robert Kneschke / fotolia.com) A modern threat?
The American evolutionary scientist Jared Diamond systematically compared traditional cultures in Papua, South Africa or the Amazon with today 's industrialized societies, stating that in traditional crops the main threats are ineffective diseases, ie diseases caused by parasites (worms, mites, lice, fleas, etc .), Viruses, bacteria and fungi. However, in the industrialized countries, the main causes of death are non-infectious diseases such as heart disease or cancer.
The fact that people in industrialized countries suffer less from infectious diseases is mainly due to successful vaccination programs, but also to advanced public hygiene, effective treatment plants and epidemic control. Even in the 19th century infectious diseases were a major cause of death in England or Germany. Hunters and gatherers, as well as traditional small farmers, are as helpless as they are directly exposed to pathogens.
Hunters and collectors
On the other hand, the lifestyle is crucial in heart disease: People in traditional cultures rarely suffer from obesity, they are low on body fat, they move a lot in everyday life, and they mostly resort to a low calorie and varied diet wide range of berries, fruits, roots and herbs.
A major risk for diabetes and heart disease, namely the excessive intake of sugar in the industrialized countries, does not matter to them, since they consume sugar only in the form of honey or fruits, but only a small part of their food.
Meanwhile, Diamond admits a problem with such comparative studies: life expectancy in traditional cultures is generally much lower than the average in industrialized countries, contrary to romantic notions of "natural people." The hotspots of the extremely old in the Caucasus or parts of China will not change that either.
However, certain heart diseases affect people over the age of 65, well beyond the average age of traditional Papuan, Maori or Yanomami.
Genetic adaptation
Conversely, some "primitive peoples" suffer from heart disease to a high degree when they consume industrial food. For example, the Pima Indians in the American Southwest are extremely suffering from severe obesity, diabetes and heart failure. The reason is that for many centuries, their organism had adapted to a low-calorie, low-fat and virtually sugar-free diet: rabbits, lizards, cacti or roots.
The excess of fat and sugars in the American industrial environment generally pollutes the organism - for the Pima, however, such a diet means a massive shortening of the lifetime.
A global question
The prevention of heart disease diseases and deaths should be a global priority in health policy. However, unlike the growing and huge number of people living and dying from cardiac insufficiency, the awareness of this problem is small - among the masses, politicians and even some healthcare professionals.
Although there is no general cure for heart failure, many cases could be avoided and most patients treated effectively to gain quality of life or, in the worst case, survive.
Moderate exercise can alleviate the symptoms and increase the quality of life of those affected. (Image: Kzenon / fotolia.com) Already regular physical activity can reduce the symptoms. However, you should entrust yourself to a specialist who works with them to develop a movement program. Such programs are most successful for middle-aged people with chronic heart failure. People with advanced cardiac insufficiency, comorbidities, who need to take many medications or suffer from depression, need a much more complex management of their condition.
Management of the lifestyle
Heart failure requires lifelong care, so management is a multidisciplinary endeavor that involves both families and patients. Advice on lifestyle changes include: abstinence from smoking, proper nutrition and nutrition, controlled use of alcohol depending on the cause of the condition.
Physical training also plays an important role in the management of heart failure. However, such exercises are only suitable for people with a stable clinical picture and in conjunction with a drug treatment. The exercises should follow a formal program, for example, thirty minutes of moderate activity 5 days a week with warm-up and relaxation exercises.
Types of heart failure
To understand what happens to a heart failure, it helps to get acquainted with the anatomy of the heart and its work: it consists of two independent pumping systems, one on the right and one on the left.
The symptoms can traditionally be divided into "left and right", recognizable by the fact that the right and the left side of the heart have different functions in the circulation of the blood.
Left-sided heart failure is the most common type. It is a condition that threatens life because the heart can not pump enough blood into the body. The left side of the heart brings blood rich in oxygen from the lungs into the rest of the body. When the ability of the left side is impaired, it can not pump enough oxygen-rich blood into the body, and that is the cause of the failure of many organs.
Common causes of left heart failure are excessive alcohol consumption, myocardial infarction, inflammation of the heart muscle, overactive thyroid gland, and heart failure as a result of previous myocardial infarction.
A weakness of the right side of the heart usually follows a weakness of the left. It can also result from damage following a heart attack on the right side. If the left side fails, the fluid pushes back into the lungs, damaging the right side of the heart. If it loses its ability to pump blood, the blood flows back into the veins, often causing the body to swell, especially in the legs.
High blood pressure
High blood pressure can increase the risk of heart failure for a long time. He is considered a stealthy killer. Often sufferers have no symptoms.
When the heart has to pump higher frequencies, the muscles are chronically overworked. The heart enlarges, especially the left ventricle. Over time, the left heart wall gets thicker and thicker to do its job. But the thicker the muscle is, the more oxygen it consumes, so the better it has to be supplied with blood. This permanent permanent stress weakens the heart. The contractions pump less blood each time.
High blood pressure increases the risk of heart failure. This is when values of 140 to 90 mmHg or higher are measured on different days. (Image: think4photop / fotolia.com) arteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis develops when plaques form in the arterial walls. As a result, the veins narrow and the blood can flow worse. Blood clots can even stop the blood flow now. A weakness already present through the narrow arteries can now lead to a heart attack or stroke.
Valvular heart disease
Diseases of the heart valve arise when one or more of the valves are damaged. The heart has four of these valves, which open and close with every heartbeat.
Birth defects, age-related changes, infections and other conditions can affect the function of the heart valves. Intact heart valves ensure that the blood flows with sufficient force on the right path at the right time. In heart valve diseases, however, these valves can not be sufficiently open or close, so that either blood flows back into the heart chambers or atria or not enough blood from the corresponding atrium in the chamber or from the corresponding chamber can flow into the circulation.
Shortness of breath and irregular pulse
Symptoms of heart valve failure include chest pain, irregular pulse, shortness of breath, and swelling. Shortness of breath lets the breath falter. Too little oxygen enters the body, so the patients can afford little. Suffocating feelings torment them and trigger anxiety.
Concerned ones creepingly use an avoidance behavior. They reduce the stress in everyday life and so hardly notice the symptoms. The professional life in front of the laptop also ensures that they do not notice the complaints: respiratory problems show up only with physical exertion.
However, as the disease progresses, it becomes clearer: Patients feel shortness of breath when climbing stairs and on walks, and breathing hurts them. Damage to the heart valves prevents the heart from pumping enough blood and the blood backs up to the lungs (left heart) or the veins (right heart). This triggers shortness of breath and shortness of breath.
If there is a heart valve defect, even the slightest effort can become torment over time. The patients get e.g. when climbing stairs no more air. (Image: Photographee.eu/fotolia.com) cardiomyopathy
This disease causes heart failure because it damages the heart muscles. The muscle enlarges, becomes thicker, and in rare cases the muscle is replaced by scar tissue.
The most common form of this disease is dilated (dilated) cardiomyopathy, which primarily affects middle-aged people. It affects the heart chambers and takes its course as the heart muscles expand and become thinner. The cause is unknown, but since one in three sufferers already have a family history of this disease, genetic stress appears to play a role.
The hypertrophic cardiomyopathy however, it is believed to be acquired and can affect people of all ages, men as well as women. It is likely to be the result of stressing the heart over scale, and is therefore particularly common in people who practice extreme competitive sports at a young age. This ensures that the cells of the heart muscle enlarge and the heart walls thicken.
Very rare is the restrictive cardiomyopathy. In this disease heart sequences are normal, as is the thickness of the heart walls. The damage lies here in the relaxation phases. The cause is an ineffective heart muscle that does not allow the heart chambers to fill up normally with blood. This leads to a backflow, in which the blood flows back into the atria, as well as into the lungs and the body. In contrast to the first two forms, almost exclusively older people are affected.
Diseases of the lung
The heart-lung system is inseparable, keeping the bloodstream upright, so we can live. Damage to the lungs therefore affects the function of the heart.
A lung disease with breathing difficulties also affects the function of the heart. (Image: Lydie / fotolia.com) A whole series of diseases of the lungs can cause heart failure, because the air supply is interrupted and so little oxygen enters the heart. This leads to breathlessness and cough as a first symptom. However, respiratory problems are not necessarily associated with diseases of the lungs: The spectrum of diseases associated with problems in breathing is so great because breathing requires various organs: First, of course, the lungs, but also the heart, the muscles and the Brain - even the bones are involved.
Shortness of breath is usually a sign of lack of oxygen or an excess of carbon dioxide. Both substances are in balance in a functioning organism. If this is disturbed, we notice this as a shortage of air. Diseases that cause these symptoms include: asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia in any form, tuberculosis, lung and throat cancer, heart attack, heart valve defects, myocarditis, coronary heart disease and heart disease.
Shortness of breath also occurs with allergic shock, severe overweight, diabetes, iron deficiency, kidney failure and thyroid disorders. Mental respiratory problems occur in panic attacks, anxiety disorders and hyperventilation.
Heart failure can arise when the lungs can no longer maintain their function. Then the sufferers have too little oxygen in their bloodstream, and the heart is no longer adequately supplied.
But while lung disease can secondary to heart failure, symptoms such as shortness of breath and shortness of breath are similar in both lung and heart disease, making the diagnosis difficult, what the consequences, and what causes it.
Thyroid disorders
Thyroid and heart diseases are closely linked. This is not surprising, because the thyroid affects almost every cell in the body. An imbalance in the endocrine gland can lead to dramatic blood pressure fluctuations, disrupting the heart rhythm and overall cardiac function. The heart muscle can not work without the thyroid hormones, more specifically not enough blood pumping into the body.
A thyroid that works normally produces 80% thyroxine (T 4) and 20% triiodothyronine (T 3). It controls the metabolism of the thyroid hormone it produces by extracting iodine from the blood and taking it up into the hormones. These hormones are unique because they absorb and use iodine. Therefore, every other cell relies on the thyroid gland.
Without the hormones produced by the thyroid, the heart muscle can not pump enough blood into the body. (Image: nerthuz / fotolia.com) Thyroid hormones have a significant effect on long-term physiological processes such as physical development, body growth and metabolism, and deficiency is not compatible with normal health.
Risk factors for heart failure
In some people, the risk of heart failure is greater than others. While it can not be predicted with certainty at what time it will develop, there are some known risk factors. These include age, genetic disposition and overweight.
Age and gender
With age, the likelihood of heart disease increases in both sexes. About four out of five people who die from coronary heart disease are 65 and older. Therefore, it is important to regularly undergo cardiac examinations with increasing age, even if a person shows no symptoms.
Sex also plays a role. For a long time, heart disease was considered a male disease. This is not true in general, because they also affect women. However, there is a tendency for heart disease to affect men earlier in life - but from the age of 65, the risk to women is just as great.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity is involved in heart disease, but this is in a complex interplay with related factors, namely social, cultural and economic. These include education, language difficulties, racism, different health systems, ideas of "traditional medicine". These interact with biological factors and social networks, such as risk factors such as smoking and alcohol. In general, however, no correlation can be established between the genetic makeup of groups of people and heart failure.
Some risk factors are more common in some parts of the world than others: South Asians, for example, have higher rates of diabetes but lower levels of stress than Central Europeans. East Asians often have high blood pressure, African Americans suffer from both hypertension and diabetes, and their risk of developing heart failure is 30% higher than that of "white" Americans.
Overall, South Asians, East Asians and Africans have a lower risk of developing heart failure than Central Europeans. This is no coincidence, because the risk factors such as high-fat and high-calorie diets, a high level of stress, "flexible" working hours combined with sedentary activity and too little exercise characterize (post) industrial societies.
Family history and genetics
The genetic conditions are involved in heart disease. This does not show itself first in a heart attack, but already in high blood pressure or high cholesterol level. Of course, risk factors such as smoking, obesity, or excessive alcohol use reinforce this inborn disposition, but heart failure affects sons and daughters, brothers and sisters also, when one smokes a chain and the other does not.
However, physicians must make a very clear distinction between traditionally transmitted traditions and basic biological equipment. Often a traditional lifestyle is crucial. Because even though the genes can affect heart disease, there is no specific gene that increases the risk alone - except congenital defects of the heart valves, heart chambers, arteries, blood circulation, etc.
The genes play an important role in heart disease. (Image: kawin302 / fotolia.com) diabetes
Diabetes indicates too high a level of blood sugar. Usually, the body breaks down glucose from food and brings it into body cells. The cells use a hormone, insulin, to turn glucose into energy. People who suffer from diabetes 1 of 2 have a higher risk of developing heart failure.
Insulin is made in the pancreas, behind the stomach. It also helps to save energy. Without the hormone, the body would not work. Insulin allows the cells in the muscles, the fat and the liver to absorb glucose that is in the blood. This glucose can be turned into fat if needed. Insulin is also necessary to break down fat and proteins.
Diabetics artificially lead insulin because they do not prote themselves enough. They usually get an injection. Over time, blood sugar levels, which are high on diabetes, can damage the blood vessels and nerves that control the heart. The longer someone suffers from "diabetes", the higher the risk of heart disease. In addition, diabetics are affected earlier in their lives by heart problems than non-patients - the risk is twice as high.
overweight
Overweight is a known risk factor for heart failure. The rule is: the higher the obesity and the obesity, the higher the risk of heart disease. The reason for this is, on the one hand, that overweight brings with it other risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. Even the overweight itself is a danger.
Being overweight means extra work for the heart
Extreme overweight means a permanent work overload for the heart. This in turn leads to a thickened and enlarged left side of the heart in the medium to long term. This in turn can lead to heart failure, to an irregular pulse and even to a cardiac arrest and / or a heart attack.
difficulty in breathing
Heavy obesity can cause chronic respiratory distress, which often accompanies an existing heart failure: respiratory distress is first of all not a medical diagnosis, but a feeling. The body breathes increased, because those affected do not get enough oxygen. Such shortness of breath differs from chronic shortness of breath in the fact that those affected initially breathe deeply, only with increased respiratory rates, the breaths flatten - people breathe shorter, because they breathe faster.
Inhaling transports the air into the lungs, where the oxygen gets into the blood and into the air sacs. The oxygenated blood pumps the heart into the circulation. Atumgssystem, heart, blood vessels and blood work together so.
Each of these "building blocks" is impaired if it gets too little oxygen. Receptors in the body detect the undersupply, notify the brain and that sends the information breathlessness and the order to increase the respiratory rate.
Internal inflammations
Obesity can also lead to overproduction of the hormone leptin, which causes excessive internal inflammation as the dangerous arteriosclerosis in the heart. In addition, too much leptin prevents insulin metabolism. This can destroy heart cells. These are replaced by fat cells in obese people. As a consequence, this leads to fatal disorders of the heart rhythm. The vernacular speaks correctly of "heart defatting".
Another complication that arises from obesity is respiratory arrest during sleep. The affected people snore heavily, it always puts their breath out. Most of the time, they wake up and catch their breath, but recurrent respiratory arrest results in a permanent supply of oxygen to the body and puts patients at increased risk of developing heart failure.
Prevention: How to prevent heart failure
A heart failure can not always be avoided, the causes are crucial. They can, however, contain risk factors.
1.) Avoid negative stress, especially if you permanently expose yourself to it. Those who learn to take breaks, take time for a nap, sleep well at night, go on trips at weekends and take a longer break instead of rubbing off, support a healthy heart in their work.
2.) Avoid excessive consumption of nicotine, alcohol and caffeine.
3.) Even if you notice no symptoms. Go regularly to the heart examination, especially from the age of 50 years. (Somayeh Khaleseh Ranjbar, translated and supplemented by Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)
references
https://www.drsinatra.com/causes-of-congestive-heart-failure-high-blood-pressure
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/Cardiomyopathy/What-Is-Cardiomyopathy-in-Adults_UCM_444168_Article.jsp
http://www.healthline.com/health/copd/serious-complications#complications2
http://www.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/heart-failure/print.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141027085430.htm
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/preventing-problems/heart-disease-stroke
http://www.obesityaction.org/educational-resources/resource-articles-2/obesity-related-diseases/cardiovascular-disease-obesity-and-the-heart
To the hormones
http://study.com/academy/lesson/hormones-definition-function-intro-to-the-endocrine-system.html
http://www.yourhormones.info/Hormones/Cortisol.aspx
http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/melatonin
http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/health/health-advice/all-about-hormones/news-story/a4d25e26803d0cddf050b47e3d474741
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001176.htm
http://www.hormone.org/hormones-and-health/what-do-hormones-do/adrenaline
https://www.endocrineweb.com/conditions/type-1-diabetes/what-insulin
http://www.idiva.com
http://www.aarogya.com/family-health/diet-a-nutrition/avoiding-the-side-effects-of-synthetic-human-growth-hormone.html
http://www.onlymyhealth.com/role-hormones-during-pregnancy-1310534790
http://www.medicaldaily.com