Contributory factors to heart disease

Contributory factors to heart disease Diet is not the only factor that causes heart disease; lifestyle is also a very big factor. Smoking deprives the blood of oxygen and also narrows the blood vessels. Smoking dramatically increases the risk of developing heart disease, lung cancer and many other diseases. These diseases are not always fatal but can seriously affect your quality of life. If a person smokes they are more likely to die before they retire. " Smoking doubles your risk of dying from heart disease. Each year 35,000 British smokers die from heart disease." (Flora project for heart disease.) Taking more exercise will help prevent C.H.D. as it has a direct link to obesity. When a person is overweight the body and the heart have to work harder. A lack of exercise can increase the chances of C.H.D. the body takes in a certain amount of fat per day, and needs to burn it all off through exercise or else the body cant cope and the fat causes the arteries to build up and clot. Having excess weight on the body gives a higher blood pressure. "About 1 in 7 of us will have high blood pressure at some point." It is advised to have your blood pressure checked by your doctor. Especially if you are over 35 you should have your blood pressure checked every 3 years or so. There is no way to tell if you have high blood pressure or not as you don't feel any different.

  • Word count: 779
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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" To KILL ,or not to KILL: that is the question"

Marcin Stenka Sem. IV Gr."A" Opinion essay " To KILL ,or not to KILL: that is the question" Around the world, animals are used to test products ranging from hand cream to new cancer drugs. Almost every medical treatment you use has been tested on animals. The question is: should animals be used in medical experiments? I strongly believe that, even though people cause harm to animals ,these experiments are useful and not once saved life of human being. In the first place, without tests progress in medicine would not be possible and many of well known cosmetics would not exist. Antibiotics invented to cure great diseases such as: polio, measles, mumps ,rubella were also tested ,but not on human. For example ,animals were also used to develop anesthetics to prevent human pain and suffering during surgery. Moreover, HIV drugs and insulin rely on animal tests ,because other testing methods aren't advanced enough. Furthermore, human living standard goes up. Can one imagine better life without soap ,toothpaste, perfumes or make-up? Without mentioned people appearance and scent would not much differ from animals. For instance , currently cosmetics are used almost everywhere at home, at work etc. Many of us are not able to live without medicines. One can function as normal having incurable disease. In addition to this, operations on animals helped to develop organ transplant. It

  • Word count: 564
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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How Exercise affects heart rate

How Exercise affects heart rate Aim My aim is to find out how exercise affects heart rate, I am going to find this out by doing Sit ups and taking my pulse and seeing how much it increases / decreases as I do sit ups for a longer amount of time. To get a good pulse I am going to take my pulse over 15 secs and times it by 4 this will give me a closer pulse than waiting for a minute because it would then increase / decrease as I measured it. Safety I am going to make this experiment safe by: . Warming up and down 2. Not over doing my self 3. Taking a rest after each time of sit ups 4. Not doing sit ups near a wall or table. Factors The factors that will affect my experiment are: > The speed I do sit ups > Fitness > Temperature Fair Test I am going to make this a fair test by; > keeping to the same pace of sit ups during the timing, > resting till my pulse has returned to normal > do repeats > use the same person > use the same exercise Apparatus The equipment I will need is: . A stopwatch 2. Gym clothes 3. Test subject Method . Take your resting pulse 2. Start doing sit ups for 1 min and take your pulse 3. Do two more repeats 4. After your pulse has slowed do the same procedure but for 2 min. 5. Do the same for 3 + 4 min 6. Plot a graph Prediction As the time I do exercise for increases my pulse will also increase, this because as the

  • Word count: 747
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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How does Smoking Affect how Quickly Someone Recovers from Exercise?

How does Smoking Affect how Quickly Someone Recovers from Exercise? Preliminary Work . Count how many beats your heart makes in one minute [this is your resting pulse]. (A) 2.Exercise for one minute and record the pulse immediately. Again for 1 minute. (B) 3. Rest for 5 minutes and record the pulse again. (C) Beats per minute (A) Resting pulse 58 (B) After exercise 12 (C) After rest 58 Plan Many factors affect how quickly someone recovers after exercise. * Asthma. This is a disease, which makes the bronchioles narrower and so makes exchanging gases more difficult. * Bodybuilding. This adds on body mass, therefore making it harder to do exercise. * Smoking. This weakens the lungs by clogging it up with tar, which also makes it harder to breathe. * Drugs. There are many sorts of drugs, and they affect your body in many different ways. * Alcohol. This all depends on the amount of alcohol you take in. * Food. If you are overweight, you should go on a diet, but if you have yourself a poor diet you will start to gain weight. This is because of the lack of nutrients. The variable in which I have chosen is ... Smoking. Apparatus Here is the list of apparatus that I will be using to perform my investigation... * Steps * Stop clock * Skipping rope * A person who smokes * A person who doesn't smoke How to measure the pulse First of all you should find out

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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HEART DISEASE The heart pumps blood around the body, supplying oxygen to all the organs, including the heart itself.

HEART DISEASE The heart pumps blood around the body, supplying oxygen to all the organs, including the heart itself. The vessels that carry blood to the heart muscle are called coronary arteries (1). There are two sides to the heart, each of which acts as a separate pump. The two halves are sub-divided into four chambers, so there are four chambers in all (2). A healthy heart will function in this way, but disruptions along the cardiac cycle can cause serious problems to the heart and lead to conditions, such as Heart disease. Coronary heart disease or (CHD) is more common in the elderly and affects 4 times more men than women according to recent studies (2). Coronary heart disease comes in two main forms: heart attack and angina. The coronary arteries become narrow with the build-up of fatty deposits, which may build-up over the course of 20-30 years. This will reduce the flow of blood to the heart and increases the chances of a blood clot blocking the artery, and becoming lodged in the coronary vessel. The blood cannot reach the heart muscle beyond this clot and a section of the heart then dies. This is also known as thrombosis (4). Thrombosis is one of the central problems in coronary heart disease. It is the cause of sudden deterioration in angina and most heart attacks. Fatty deposits known as 'plaques' are made up of many substances including a fatty substance

  • Word count: 1716
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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How the structure of the heart allows it to function

How the structure of the heart allows it to function Every cell in the body requires a supply of oxygen and food, luckily, that's exactly what the blood does, providing a transport medium to deliver critical supplies and also to remove harmful waste products to the cells. However, without a pump, blood is next to useless if it cannot get to the cells in the first place. The role of the heart is to pump blood around the body. It has to do this about 70 times a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 25 hours per day, from the day your were born to the day you die. Therefore, the heart has to be efficient at pumping about 4300 gallons of blood each day, and respond according to the body's metabolic rate. For example, when you exercise, your heart rate increases to meet the demand for more oxygen that is required in respiration (release of energy from food) and also, to quickly get rid of the by-products - carbon dioxide. The heart is an organ, about the size of a clenched fist (pretty small for a critical role that it plays in the body), situated between the lungs and protected by the sternum (breastbone), the heart comprises of specialised cardiac muscle tissue. The actual structure of the heart consists of 4 chambers, 2 chambers on each side, separated by the septum. The septum ensures that neither oxygenated blood and deoxygenated blood mix together. This ensures that blood with

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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The Cardiac Cycle.

The Cardiac Cycle that is the sequence of events that makes up one heartbeat. The heart beats approximately 70 times a minute and is constant it pumps around 75cm3 from each ventricle beat. The cardiac muscle contracts on its own without a nerve impulse this mean it is Myogenic. Contractions commence within the heart by the SAN Sino-atrial node (pacemaker) found in the right atrium. This tissue acts as a clock and contracts spontaneously and rhythmically once a second. When the cardiac muscle contracts the volume in the chamber decrease and the pressure in the chamber increases so the blood is pushed out. The periods of contraction are called Systole. The periods of relaxation are called Diastole. When surgically removed from the body, the heart will keep on beating for numerous hours provided it is supplied with the suitable nutrients and salts. This is possible because the heart possesses its own specialised conduction system and can beat independently even after being detached from its nerve supply. The heart fills with blood and the muscle in the atrial wall contracts. This stage is known as Atrial Systole. The pressure that is developed in this contraction is not very big because the muscle walls of the atria are thin however is sufficient to push the blood in the atria down through the atrio-ventricular valves into the ventricles. They have semilunar valves that

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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Research on Galen and William Harvey.

Madhav Manek 4V 11th November 2003 Research on Galen and William Harvey Galen (129-c. 199) Galen was the most outstanding physician of antiquity after Hippocrates. His anatomical studies on animals and observations of how the human body functions dominated medical theory and practice for 1,400 years. Galen was born of Greek parents in Pergamum, Asia Minor, which was then part of the Roman Empire. A shrine to the healing god Asclepius was located in Pergamum, and there young Galen observed how the medical techniques of the time were used to treat the ill or wounded. He received his formal medical training in nearby Smyrna and then travelled widely, gaining more medical knowledge. In about 161 he settled in Rome, where he became renowned for his skill as a doctor, for his animal dissections, and his public lectures. In about 169 the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius appointed Galen as the physician to his son, Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus. Most of Galen's later life was probably spent in Rome. Galen dissected many animals; particularly goats, pigs, and monkeys, to demonstrate how different muscles are controlled at different levels of the spinal cord. He noted the functions of the kidney and bladder and identified seven pairs of cranial nerves. He also showed that the brain controls the voice. Galen

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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The need for emergency life support

The need for emergency life support "Emergency Life Support" describes the essential knowledge and skills needed in a life-threatening emergency. This may be for a threatened heart attack, sudden collapse, severe bleeding or choking. You should know how to get an ambulance or other medical assistance wherever you are. To live we need to have a regular supply of oxygen to all parts of our body. In particular the brain will become severely damaged if it is deprived of oxygen for more than a few minutes. To keep the brain supplied with oxygen three things are essential: A An open and clear AIRWAY through which air, containing oxygen, can pass to the lungs. B BREATHING - a process which delivers air into the lungs where oxygen can enter the blood stream. C A CIRCULATION which requires a pumping heart together with sufficient blood in the blood vessels to carry oxygen from the lungs round the body. Resuscitation is the term used for the emergency treatment needed to overcome the failure of one or all of these functions. It may consist simply of opening the airway and turning an unconscious casualty onto his side or it may mean breathing into the casualty's lungs or pressing on the chest to make blood circulate round the body. This document should help provide you with sufficient knowledge and confidence to give emergency treatment if the need arises. Approach and

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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William Harvey’s contribution to the history of medicine

Harvey studied at Padua, Italy, under Fabricius. Padua was the centre for western European medical instruction at that time and Harvey graduated with honours in 1602. Upon returning to England, he had the good fortune to marry the daughter of Queen Elizabeth I's physician and this meant that Harvey did not have to work too hard to make a living. This left him more time to pursue medical research and set about proving Galen's account of the action of the heart wrong. He managed to prove Galen's theory of circulation wrong. Galen had said that blood was produced by the liver and used as food for the muscles. Harvey disproved his theory and had a completely original view of the body being one system and not separate parts. He was fascinated by the way the blood flowed through the human body. Most people at the time believed that food was converted into blood by the liver and then was used as fuel by the muscles, as Galen suggested. Harvey knew this was untrue through his firsthand observations of human and animal dissections. In 1628, Harvey published "An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals". It explained how blood was pumped from the heart throughout the body, then returned to the heart and re-circulated. The views this book expressed were very controversial and lost Harvey many patients, but it became the basis for all modern research on

  • Word count: 881
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Science
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