Coronary Artery Disease Essay

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Coronary artery disease develops when your coronary arteries the major blood vessels that supply your heart with blood, oxygen and nutrients become damaged or diseased. Cholesterol containing deposits or plaque on your arteries are usually to blame for coronary artery disease. When plaques build up, they narrow your coronary arteries, causing your heart to receive less blood. Eventually, the decreased blood flow may cause chest pain, shortness of breath, or other coronary artery disease signs and symptoms. A complete blockage can cause a heart attack.
Coronary artery disease is thought to begin with damage or injury to the inner layer of a coronary artery, sometimes as early as childhood. The damage may be caused by various factors including smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and radiation therapy to the chest. Once the inner wall of an artery is damaged, fatty deposits made of cholesterol and other cellular waste products tend to accumulate at the site of injury in a process called atherosclerosis. If the surface of these plaques breaks or ruptures, blood cells called platelets will clump at the site to try to repair the artery. This clump can block the artery, leading to a heart attack.
Coronary artery disease often develops over decades, it can go virtually unnoticed until you have a heart attack. If your coronary arteries become narrowed, they can’t supply enough oxygen-rich blood to your heart especially when it’s beating hard, such as during exercise. At first, the decreased blood flow may not cause any coronary artery disease symptoms. As the plaques continue to build up in your coronary arteries, however, you may develop coronary artery disease symptoms.
Chest pain or angina is when you feel pr...

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...e 610,000 are a first heart attack and 325,000 are a repeat heart attack.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for American men and women, accounting for 1 out of every 4 deaths each year. Every 34 seconds someone has a heart attack and each minute someone dies from a heart disease-related event. There are approximately 715,000 heart attacks and 600,000 deaths each year due to heart disease in the United States. Although the frequency of CAD is similar in both black and white populations, the death rate from CAD is greater for blacks than for whites. In 2009 African Americans were 30% more likely to die from a heart disease than non-Hispanic white men. CABG is the most common type of open-heart surgery in the United States, with more than 500,000 surgeries performed each year. Angioplasty is done on more than 1 million people a year in the United States.

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