Cardiovascular disease is currently the nation’s leading non-communicable cause of morbidity and mortality. According to the American Heart Association, the most common form of cardiovascular disease is coronary artery disease, a condition in which the heart’s blood supply is reduced due to a narrowing of the coronary arteries. These arteries play a significant role in regulating the flow of oxygenated blood to the heart. As blood circulates through the arteries, it exerts a force against the vessel walls, known as blood pressure. To withstand this pressure, elastic fibers interspersed along the artery walls allow the arteries to expand and recoil. Abnormally high blood pressure, however, will cause these muscles to thicken as a result of tears in the damaged artery walls trapping particles that aggregate as plaque. Progressive build-up of plaque ultimately leads to a narrowing of the arteries, subsequently diminishing blood flow to the heart and other body organs. This cascade of events triggered by high blood pressure illustrates why hypertension is one of the most important risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Affecting 1 in every 3 adults in the United States alone, hypertension substantially raises the risk for heart disease in an affected individual who, most likely, does not show any signs or symptoms. In addition to the risks associated with this “silent killer,” comorbidities such as obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol can drastically worsen health outcomes in hypertensive patients. Given the high prevalence and severe consequences of hypertension if undetected, researching this particular topic will increase our understanding of the causes of hypertension by identifying and narrowing down lead candidates for pot...
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...sion can drive the advancement of a possible cure for hypertension through gene therapy. On a conceptual level, the strategy of gene therapy presents many benefits over conventional drug treatment, such as long-lasting modification of defective or variant genes and elimination of side-effect issues. Intriguingly, the genetics of essential hypertension is an interesting issue because we often think of hypertension as a result of our lifestyle habits and environmental factors. However, the study of genetics can really help to predict disorders in individuals at risk through the examination of particular affected genetic loci that influences that disorder. Such an intervention would make the prevention and treatment of hypertension, a prevalent disorder with a large impact on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in the present day, more feasible and highly effective.
Vicki is a 42-year-old African American woman who was diagnosed with Hypertension a month ago. She has been married to her high school sweetheart for the past 20 years. She is self-employed and runs a successful insurance agency. Her work requires frequent travel and Vicki often has to eat at fast food restaurants for most of her meals. A poor diet that is high in salt and fat and low in nutrients for the body and stress from her job are contributing factors of Vicki’s diagnosis of hypertension. This paper will discuss the diagnostic testing, Complementary and Alternative Medicine treatments, the prognosis for hypertension, appropriate treatment for Vicki, patient education, and potential barriers to therapy that Vicki may experience.
How does this history of high blood pressure demonstrate the problem description and etiology components of the P.E.R.I.E. process? What different types of studies were used to establish etiology or contributory cause?
The Mayo Clinic’s book on High Blood Pressure was full of detailed facts about blood pressure and what it is. This is extremely significant to the experiment because blood pressure is one of the variables being tested. Understanding blood pressure is one of the key components to receiving accurate results from this experiment. Most of the book is on high blood pressure, which is not necessary for the experiment, but the book still had plenty of useful information about blood pressure itself. The book explains that when the heart beats, a surge of blood is released from the left ventricle. It also tells of how arteries are blood vessels that move nutrients and oxygenated blood from the heart to the body’s tissues. The aorta, or the largest artery in the heart, is connected to the left ventricle and is the main place for blood to leave the heart as the aorta branches off into many different smaller
Blood pressure is a measurement of the force against the walls of your arteries as your heart pumps blood through your body. Hypertension is another term used to describe high blood pressure. This common condition increases the risk for heart disease and stroke, two leading causes of death for Americans. High blood pressure contributed to more than 362,895 deaths in the United States during 2010. Approximately 67 million persons in the United States have high blood pressure, and only half of those have their condition under control. An estimated 46,000 deaths could be avoided annually if 70% of patients with high blood pressure were treated according to published guidelines (Patel, Datu, Roman, Barton, Ritchey, Wall, Loustalot; 2014).
The causes of hypertension are unknown. However; hypertension can be classified into two categories primary and secondary. Primary (essential) hypertension is increas...
Hypertension is a developing problem worldwide，associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. In 2020, the world population will be approximately 7.8 billion people, and there will be 1 billon people who may be affected by hypertension (Tomson & Lip, 2005). One in three adults in the United States has high blood pressure. According to the report “Health, United States, 2010 with Special Feature on Death and Dying,” the prevalence of hypertension among adults 20 years old or older increased from 24% to 32% during 1988-1994 and 2005-2008. The African-American population has a higher prevalence of this health condition than white Americans do. In 2005 to 2008, the prevalence of hypertension among black males (41.4%) was more than 10%, compared to white males at 31.5% of the population. The hypertension rate of black females was more than twice that of white females. The death rate from hypertension among black males was 51.8 per 100,000, and among black females was 40.4 per 100,000; however, the morta...
The hereditary risk factors for cardiovascular disease are primarily those of which individuals are unable to control, the ones for which they are born with. These risk factors would include an individual’s sex, race, age, and genetics. One out of every five males has some form of cardiovascular disease and the same applies for females. More women than men have cardiovascular disease in this country, but this is only due to the fact that there are more women within the U.S. population (Weiss and Lonnquist, 2011). Men percentage wise are at a higher risk than women. There is a somewhat reduced probability for females to have cardiovascular disease before menopause. This is believed by medical researchers and scientists to be directly related to the natural hor...
" Journal of Clinical Hypertension 13.5 (2011): 351-56. EBSOHost.com - a. Web. The Web.
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the number one killer in America, affecting more than 13 million people. CAD occurs when a fatty substance called plaque builds up in the coronary arteries. These arteries disperse oxygen-ric...
Coronary Heart Disease Coronary heart disease occurs when the coronary arteries become partially blocked from, cholesterol and fat, circulating in the blood. This causes a build up inside the walls of the arteries. This only occurs if the levels of fat and cholesterol are extremely high in the blood that there is a greater chance that it will be deposited onto the artery walls. If the arteries become completely blocked, the patient will have a myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack.
Coronary Heart Disease Coronary heart disease is the most common form of heart disease. It is a general term for both heart attack and angina. Many people suffer from it and 500,000 Americans die from it each year. It is much more common in older people and in males. However, women tend to be older and sicker when they are first treated for a heart attack.
Another area of medical advancement is genetic engineering. Genetic engineering will detect and possibly stop diseases before birth. Many diseases are associated with specific genes that can be checked for disease and replaced if dysfunctional. Genetic testing has already revealed genetic mutations that cause hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, colon cancer, polycystic kidney disease, Alzheimers disease, and others. (5) Replacing missing, altered, inactive, or dysfunctional genes will prevent diseases or even death. Also, progression of a disease can be monitored, and
Genetics & Personalized Medicine. (2013). University of Ottawa Heart Institute. Retrieved on February 3, 2014 from: http://www.ottawaheart.ca/research_discovery/genetics-personalized-medicine.htm
However, the safety of gene therapy should be carefully considered. First, it may cause angiogenesis, which may trigger nonfunctional vessels or stimulation of angiogenesis in ...
Diseases such as cancer, diabetes and many cardiovascular diseases constituting the majority of health problems in the world could also be eradicated from the face of the earth in a decade if this becomes the reality. Even right now genome-based research has led to many medical researchers and scientists creating improvement in the diagnostics in the medical clinic and also increasing the efficiency of the clinic. So it is safe to say that the role of genetics in medical care has changed drastically and the first examples of the era of genomic medicines are upon us. However genetics remains one of the factors of developing the most common disease but more detailed understanding of genetics can enlighten us with the basic components of the cell and eventually explain how all the elements work together in an efficient way to affect the human anatomy in both time of health and time of disorder or diseases. The study of genomics first came into existence with the start of the project Human Genome Project (HGP) in 2003.