What is a Heart Disease?


Think of all the parts and organs in your body. If there is one that you cannot live without, it would be your heart.

The heart is like the engine room of your body. It supplies blood to cells in every corner of your body. It carries oxygenated blood (blood enriched with oxygen from the lungs) to your body organs to use, and de-oxygenated blood (used up blood) for the lungs to enrich again.

But the heart cannot do this alone. It needs vessels (tubes) to carry the blood.

The connection (network system) of all blood vessels to the heart is what we call the cardiovascular system, and the heart is the ‘leader’.

So, there will be a bit of a worry if anything affects the free-functioning of your heart and its vessels. Diseases that occur with any malfunction of the heart may be called Heart Diseases (Cardiovascular Disease CVD).

Heart disease is a leading cause of death in many countries including USA, UK and Canada.

This means there are many types of heart diseases. In this lesson, we shall consider some common types including Arteriosclerosis  and Atherosclerosis, Angina, Heart Attack and Stroke. The causes of all these are very similar. We shall also learn new medical words, so get your notebook and pencil…Ready…