Heart Disease- The Leading Cause of Death in the US
I really didn't know what I would want to use as a topic for my You & The World Project, so I started searching for ideas and what I came across was the topic of heart disease, heart disease is a condition that takes even more lives than cancer, which to me was a huge shocker. I have a lot of people in my family who died from heart disease, such as my Aunt Pearl who had went into cardiac arrest and went brain dead, because of lack of oxygen and blood going to her brain for too long. I am at an alarming risk for heart disease, because on my dad's size most of his family has high cholesterol and on my mom's side of the family a lot of people have diabetes. My parents always tell my siblings and I, to eat healthy and try to stay active so that we can live long lives. Habits such as drinking alcohol, lack of exercise, and eating foods with too much carbohydrates and trans fats puts people at even higher rates.
Conditions such as heart infections, valvular heart disease, weak heart muscles, etc. The most common type of heart disease is blockage or the narrowing of the blood vessels, that pump blood directly to the heart, the disease itself is called coronary heart disease. Some babies are born with heart conditions and defects like Congenital Heart Disease, the newborns blood flow can be blocked completely, go the wrong way, or slow down. Signs of this is babies having shortness of breath, a bluish tint to the skin, lips, and fingernails, fatigue, and poor blood circulation. If you a parent of a child you should at least go get a heart test for your child, because they can show little to no signs of symptoms, but will affect the child in their later stages of life. Older people and babies aren't the only type of people who are at risk for heart conditions and defects. Teenagers are too, one of the heart diseases that teenagers are at risk for is Coarctation of the Aorta, or COA. The Aorta is the part of the heart that carries blood away from the heart, when someone has a coarctation of the aorta, the aorta is narrowed at some point. This affects the entire bodies' blood circulation, because the left side of the heart has to work harder to pump blood to pump blood through the narrowed aorta, this leads to higher blood pressures in the arms than the legs, cold legs and feet, shortness of breath, and chest pain.
A stroke can be linked to heart disease, when a blood clot blocks arteries that carries blood to your brain it'll cause your brain tissues to get damaged. A type of stroke is a Hemorrhagic, this type of stroke happens when a blood vessel in brain breaks or ruptures. The blood then seeps in to the brain tissue and causes damage to the brain cells which then leads to a stroke. Another type of stroke is Ischemic stroke, where blood clots form in the brain's blood vessels, these clots block up the blood flow to the brain's cells, about eighty percent of all strokes are caused by this. The clots can happen after a heart attack which is a form of heart disease, the blood clots are usually caused by plaque buildup, which is a process called atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is called "hardening of the arteries", this is when cholesterol and calcium begin to build up on the wall of the arteries, forming plaque. Over time the plaque may narrow the artery and blood flow through it. This condition affects other parts of the body such as the pelvis and legs, causing poor blood circulation, slow healing of injuries, and erection problems.
I want to change the number of people who die yearly from heart diseases, because, they eat foods with too much sugars and fats. I'm no better than anyone else, I do make most mistakes that people with heart diseases make and I see that I consume a lot of food that are high in sugars and trans fat. We should all try to look out for ourselves and each other to make sure that we eat healthy and get lots of exercise so that we can keep our hearts in their best shape possible
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