Coronary diseases

Your heart is a powerful muscle, that works your entire life, day and night, pumping blood through the thousands of kilometers of blood vessels in your body! It's a gigantic system, working non-stop. It's not surprising if something breaks down. And it does, for a lot of people. Cardiovascular diseases are the most common causes of death in the world.

Check this out! On the outside of the heart are the coronary arteries. They bring oxygen rich blood to the heart, so that it can do its job. Oooops! These coronary arteries are pretty congested actually!

On the inside of them there are layers of fat and other junk. You have got yourself a case of arteriosclerosis. The layers of fat are called plaque, and they are blocking the flow, so the blood can't get through properly. Then your heart won't get enough oxygen. That hurts, and may feel like a pressure in your chest.

We can send in a tiny balloon, that we blow up and make the vessel widen again. Now the blood can flow better. Let's have a look in the other vessel. Is there plaque there too? Yes, look here!

And here. And... Eew! Here's some plaque that's broken up. What's going to happen now? ...

blood seems to gather up, with other stuff, and coagulate, forming a clot. This is what your body does when something has broken. If the blood didn't form clots when a vessel broke, all the blood would run out when we got a wound. So it's vital that clots are formed. But inside the vessels, this can be dangerous.

Tiny bits of the clot can float off... And the clots can plug the vessels, so that blood can't get through with it's fresh oxygen. And then that part of the body is deprived of oxygen. Now it seems to be one of the lungs that doesn't get enough oxygen rich blood. If the same thing happens in the brain, it's called a stroke.

When the brain doesn't get enough oxygen, you can get a serious brain injury, or die. And if you get a clot here, then you have got yourself a heart attack, or myocardial infarction. Part of your heart gets no oxygen, and dies. You can survive a small heart attack, even if your heart doesn't work as well afterwards. But a major heart attack is deadly.

So, we have to remove the clots. We can give a medicine that makes the blood thinner and stops it clotting so easily. Or we can remove them surgically, using a narrow tube in the blood vessels, to fish them out. What about this one? Here too we insert a thin tube.

When the clot is removed, a tiny piece of mesh is placed there to keep the vessel open. So, aren't we doing anything about this plaque then, the arteriosclerosis? Unfortunately not. Arteriosclerosis that has already formed can't really be treated. But there are things you can do to reduce the risk of arteriosclerosis.

And of cardiovascular diseases entirely. If you: refrain from smoking. ... drink no - or only a little - alcohol. ... eat a varied diet, with a lot of fruit and greens and not so much sugar, ... exercise, ...

and sleep properly, ... then your chance of living a long life, with healthy heart and blood vessels increases a lot.