Coronary Artery Disease Health Video

Coronary artery disease, or coronary heart disease, is the end result of the heart muscle losing nutrients due to blockage in blood vessels of the heart. Learn more about coronary heart disease, including warning signs and treatments in this video.

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Do not smoke
Maintain a healthy weight
Control your diet
Control your diabetes
Control high cholesterol

About this Author

Dr. Dave Weiland has been practicing cardiology in the Bay Area for 21 years. On top of operating a practive in San Pablo, CA for the past 15 years, Dr. Weiland works with eight other doctors in traveling all around the Bay Area to treat patients everywhere. Dr. Weiland graduated from the Ohio State Medical School in 1981; following that with an additional six years of study at Tufts University. Dr. Weiland received his training in cardiology at the New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and now teaches medical students about cardiology.

DAVE WEILAND: Hi. This is Dr. David Weiland. We're now going to talk about coronary artery disease. Coronary artery disease refers to disease of the coronary arteries. The coronary arteries are the arteries that come out of the heart. The blood is pumped out of the left ventricle of the heart into the aorta. The aorta has a left and right coronary artery that brings blood back to the heart. These arteries sit on the surface of the heart, and they have many branches that penetrate into the heart muscle to provide blood flow to the heart. Coronary artery disease would refer to disease of these arteries which can later lead to heart attack, heart failure, and arrhythmias of the heart. Symptoms of coronary artery disease often involve not receiving enough oxygen during the exertion or stress. Symptoms will be classically be: chest pain, tightness in the chest, or shortness of breath with exertion. Treatment of coronary disease involves medications for the most part that will improve blood flow to the heart and also make the heart work more efficiently with the blood flow it's getting through the diseased arteries. The treatment may also occasionally involve improving blood to the arteries through a surgical type of procedure, such as putting a coronary stent in, which will increase the size of the coronary artery to allow blood flow through, or even considering bypass graft surgery, open heart surgery which improves blood flow to the heart. Prevention of coronary artery disease would involve treating underlying risk factors: Tobacco use, diet, cholesterol elevation, high blood pressure, and controlling diabetes. If you have coronary artery disease, you really should be under the care of a cardiologist who can monitor the situation, and make sure you're on the right amount of medications and make sure that you don't need any of the above-mentioned procedures such as angioplasty, stent placement, or open heart surgery to improve the situation.

Coronary Artery Disease Health Video

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