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Home / Health / Articles

Causes of heart diseases

• Heredity:
  
  There is ample evidence to show that incidence of heart disease is more in persons whose direct predecessors like fathers, grandfathers, mothers, brothers have suffered from similar disease. Coronary artery disease is found to run mainly in families. A strong family history of the disease is important in diagnosis.
  
  
• Stress:
  
  Heart disease has often been identified with certain personality patterns. It is labelled as personality disease or a high executive disease, that is, it strikes persons with a certain personality. A certain study has shown that there was four times as much coronary disease among aggressive type of individuals.
  
  In addition to this other factors such as family responsibilities, interpersonal relationship, financial worries, leisure interests, habits of eating drinking and smoking etc. may play a part that may effect one's heart.
  
  
• Smoking:
  
  It has been found by some workers that death rate among those who had heart attack was 50-150 percent higher in those who were heavy cigarette smoker than non-smokers.
  
  
• Physical Exercise:
  
  There is a fairly general trend towards encouraging regular physical effort of a kind suited to age and condition of the person concerned. As a preventive as well as a remedial measure exercise is of great importance. There is abundant evidence to suggest that a stressful sedentary life without much exercise provides a situation fraught with coronary danger. Death rate from coronary heart disease is lower among those who do strenuous physical work.
  
  Even for patients, who have survived coronary attacks, there has lately been a change in the thinking in marked contrast in earlier ideas. The doctors are now a day advocating, after the initial prescribed rest, walking up the stairs, going on hikes, bicycles and other forms of exercise. The quantum of exercise in each case must of course be decided by the attending physician.
  
  
• Diet and obesity:
  
  Studies have shown 50 percent increase in heart attacks in employees who were over weight. Similarly diet and amount of fat are matter of vital importance. The sound advice which could be given is to lead a life of moderation in matter of diet and activity an also to avoid obesity. Large fatty meals and strenuous exercise after them is not conducive to a healthy heart.
  
  Saturated fats such as whole milk, cream, butter, cheese meat, fat, etc raise blood cholesterol level. On the other hand unsaturated fats are of vegetable origin and they tend to lower blood cholesterol levels like maize oil, cottonseed oil sunflower oil and fat of fish.

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