What Is Heart Disease

The heart is the center of the body's cardiovascular system. Throughout the body's blood vessels, the heart pumps blood to all of the body's cells. The blood carries oxygen, which the cells need. Heart disease is a group of medical problems that occur when the heart and blood vessels aren't working the way they should.

How Do You Get Heart Disease?

Heart disease is not contagious so it cannot be caught like the common cold or the everyday flu. There are certain things that can increase a person's chances of getting cardiovascular disease, also known as Heart disease. These are commonly known as risk factors.

Some of these risk factors a person are not able to do anything about, such as getting older or having people in their family who have the same heart problem. Risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, being overweight, and not exercising enough can increase the risk of getting heart disease.

What Are the Signs of Heart Disease?

Many people do not realize they have cardiovascular disease. Often it isn't known until they have a chest pain, a heart attack, or stroke. These kinds of problems often need immediate attention and the person may need to go to the emergency department of a hospital for an assessment.

If the condition proves not to be an emergency, and a doctor suspects the person could have cardiovascular disease, the doctor can do some tests to find out more about how the heart and blood vessels are working.

These tests include electrocardiograms. This test records the hearts electrical activity. The person becomes attached to a monitor and the heartbeat is watched on a machine to see if it is normal or not.

Cardiovascular disease is a common problem within society as a whole. With better choices in eating, exercising and decreased stress levels, anyone can have a happier and healthy life.