ACADEMY PUBLIC POLICIES

Fewer men and women are dying of heart disease but as we live longer, keeping active and healthy becomes increasingly important.

The benefits of lowering cholesterol and blood pressure and stopping smoking are unfortunately offset by increasing incidence of obesity and diabetes as well as physical inactivity, so all aspects of heart health need attention: not just one or two.

Most heart attacks, 90% in fact, are caused by factors we can do something about.

We use na innovative methodological method based on most frenquently questions of patients and families we give the answers in most simple way.

We try to desmitify the medicine and the complex and technical terms more used.

We try to bring medicine to a normal citizen.

We do not have all the answers, but we have a lot we can work on.

When we are happy and feeling well, it is only natural to put aside all thoughts of illness. Life, after all, is meant to be enjoyed.

Many people are, however, aware that heart disease, particularly coronary artery disease, can brutally interrupt that happiness.

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) remains the single most important cause of premature death in the most develop countries.

Your heart is a pump made of muscle which pushes blood through your arteries to all organs of your body. The body needs oxygen and energy to work normally and blood is the delivery system. Blood picks up its oxygen in the lungs and becomes bright red as a result. After it gives up its oxygen, blood takes carbon dioxide and waste products for elimination to the lungs, liver and kidneys in the veins, where it is a now a dark red colour. Your heart muscle needs oxygen and energy and this is obtained from the blood through the coronary arteries.

Question: What is the heart?

Answer: The heart is a muscular pump but it is a very sophisticated one. It is made of muscle different from the sort that moves your arms and legs.

Heart muscle is particularly strong as it has to cope with the physical and emotional stresses of normal daily life and, of course, it never takes a rest (you hope!). It beats on average 100 000 times every 24 hours and pumps out between 5 and 20 litres of blood (1 litre equals just under 2 pints) every minute, depending on your body’s needs – more when you are being active than when you are resting. Every organ in the body needs oxygen to function normally and efficiently.

Question: When I asked my doctor how my heart works, he said that it would take too long to explain! Can you tell me simply how the normal heart works?

Answer: The healthy normal heart is made up of strong muscle and four valves in full working order. It gets its oxygen from blood supplied by the coronary arteries. It is controlled by an electric circuit which tells it when to beat and how fast to beat. The medical term for contraction of your heart pump (that is, when the heart beats, felt as the pulse) is systole, and when the heart relaxes (between the beats or pulse), diastole.