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What is cardiovascular disease?

In this brief post, I just want to focus on words.

 Cardiovascular disease (CVD) - also called heart disease.

  • "Cardio" means heart.
  • "Vascular" means blood vessels.
  • So, CVD refers to a class of diseases that involve the heart and/or the blood vessels. 


 The most common form of CVD is coronary heart disease (CHD).
  • Coronary arteries – the blood vessels providing blood to the heart muscle 
  • Arteries are blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart. 
  • Heart supplies blood to other tissues. But its own muscles need oxygenated blood too. So, these coronary arteries represent arteries that supply blood to heart muscle.

In CHD, coronary arteries become narrow and rigid, restricting blood flow to the heart. 

CHD is also called ischemic heart disease. 
  • ischemia is a restriction in blood supply to tissues

Another common form of CVD is stroke. 
in stroke, the arteries supplying blood to the brain become blocked and blood flow is impaired. 

The basic problem in cardiovascular diseases is build-up of plaque in the walls of arteries, leading to narrowing of the arteries and gradual obstruction of blood flow.
This build-up of plaque is called atherosclerosis. 

There are other cardiovascular diseases - heart failure, diseases of the heart muscle (cardiomyopathy), heart valve problems, and arrhythmia.

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