Heart Disease
(also known as Cardiovascular disease)
Basics
Cardiovascular disease is most often caused by atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis, a condition that is developed when plaque builds up in the walls of the arteries, also known as a clogged artery. Once plaque is built up, the arteries become narrow to the point where it's hard for blood to flow through. If blood clots form it could possibly cause the flow of blood to stop, causing a heart attack or stroke.
Heart attacks occur when the blood flow to part of the heart is blocked by a blood clot. The clot could possibly block off all flow completely, when this occurs the part of the heart muscle being supplied by that artery starts to die.
When people have their first heart attack normally they return back to their normal life with just minor changes in their lifestyle, though they do depend on the damage done to the heart and arteries.
Symptoms of heart disease include: difficulty breathing, weakness or fatigue while preforming normal everyday activities, fainting/light-headed, and irregular heartbeats, blue coloring in the blood from low levels in the blood.
Causes
- Heart disease
- Cardiovascular disease
- Cardiomyopathy
- Heart arrhythmia
- Valvular heart disease
- Heart infection
- Congenital heart disease
CHD Signaling Pathway
"Normal cardiac development is dependent on PCP signaling, which contributes to correct cardiac specification in the mesodermal germ layer. If the correct expression of proteins in PCP signaling is disrupted, then defects may be seen in the heart."
Planar cell Polarity signaling pathway is responsible for tissue polarity in Drosophila, gastrulation movements, and cardiogenesis in vertebrates. These are shown for multiple roles during cardiac differentiation as well as development. Pathogenesis are affected by the PCP factors, the PCP signaling is connected to CHD. Correlation has been made between dysregulation of the planar cell polarity signaling pathway.
Incorrect/Correct Mechanism
If the signaling between proteins is disturbed, then congenital heart disease occurs. Ezh2 acts as a "master regular" shutting off genes that are no longer needed or that need to be kept off. Six1 is normally only on for a certain period of time during heart development, then the Ezh2 shuts off for good. When Ezh2 is a regulator and is not present in the bodies genes, Six1 remains on leading to heart problems later in life. The other genes are boosted that shouldn't be activated. On the other hand if it isn't disturbed then your heart acts as a normal human beings would.
Research/treatment
Cardiovascular DiseaseTreatment
Heart Valve Problems
Medications
Heart valve surgery
Arrhythmia
Medications
Pacemaker
Cardiac Defibrillation
Heart Attack
Medications — clotbusters (should be administered as soon as possible for certain types of heart attacks)Coronary Angioplasty
Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery
Stroke
Medications — clotbusters (must be administered within 3 hours from onset of stroke symptoms for certain types of strokes)
Carotid Endarterectomy (PDF)
Congenital heart disease
Most of the research being done is called tracking, birth defects tracking systems identify babies born with birth defects, including CHDs, and collect information to learn more about these conditions.
Citations
Biotechnol, J. B. (2011). Planar Cell Polarity Signaling Pathway in Congenital Heart Diseases. Retrieved from US National Library of Medicine : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3205795/
Foundation, M. (n.d.). MayoClinic. Retrieved from http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-disease/basics/causes/CON-20034056
Rochais, F. (2015). American Heart Association. Retrieved from http://circres.ahajournals.org/content/104/8/933.abstract