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Heart Disease: is it anyone's fault?

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Introduction

Heart Disease: is it anyone's fault? By Mandar Nigdikar BY3/MRF I think the question of whose fault heart disease is has come into the minds of anybody that has some one that they have known suffer from it. This assignments aim is to shed light upon this matter and allow the reader to draw a conclusion from the information provided. We must first find out what heart disease is to be able to answer the question. The thickening of the inner wall of arteries causes heart disease. Deposits made on the arteries known as the atheroma cause this thickening. Parts of the atheroma become hardened and can cause the arterial wall to lose some of the elasticity it once had, this is known as arteriosclerosis. As more deposits are made the atheroma can spread into the tunnel of the artery thus narrowing the blood vessel, this then causes a reduced blood flow. The atheroma can cause blood clots to form by piercing the walls of the artery this can cause a blockage within the artery if the clot is of sufficient size. ...read more.

Middle

Although she did feel that she had not taken enough preventive measures against this knowing that her family had this problem. This is an example of a factor that we are unable to control having a genetic predisposition to the disease. The other uncontrollable factors that make people more likely to develop heart disease are old age and being male. Scientists have found that although their have been cases of heart disease in young children the majority are in the elderly as their arterial walls become weaker. Males are more likely to develop heart disease then women. This is thought to be because males don not carry around the same levels of oestrogen that are thought to reduce the proportion of low density lipoproteins within the blood. This is beneficial as LDL's as their known carry around a large amount of cholesterol that accounts for some of the deposit on the artherial walls (atheroma). The controllable factors really relate to the lifestyle that the western world now lives in. ...read more.

Conclusion

Lack of exercise is another factor in heart disease. When you exercise you strengthen the hearts ability to contract faster so pumping more blood in one beat thus reducing heart rate. This in all helps the heart reduce pressure upon it while at rest. In looking at the evidence there are early two answers to the question "who's fault is heart disease". It does depend upon the case in question. If you are like Dr S V Nigdikar you may be genetically prone to heart disease and so have little control if you acquire it or not. However the majority of cases are shown that the patient in question have acquired heart disease because of something they have done. Such as lead a "lazy" lifestyle. By this I mean doing not much exercise, eating fast food or packaged food such as crisps, and smoking. If we are looking to blame somebody for why there is so many deaths due to heart disease we should be looking to ourselves. ...read more.

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