The WHO lists cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) as the number 1 cause of death globally, taking an estimated 17.9 million lives each year. Four out of five CVD deaths are due to heart attacks and strokes, and one third of these deaths occur prematurely in people under 70 years of age (https://www.who.int/health-topics/car…)
Cardiovascular disease, or CVD, refers to a variety of health problems with the heart or blood vessels, including heart attacks, heart failure and stroke. The underlying defects remain incompletely understood and asymptomatic vascular damage can accumulate for years before patients are diagnosed.
Risk factors include * high blood pressure, * unhealthy eating habits, * lack of physical exercise, * smoking and alcohol consumption
The build-up of plaques in blood vessels referred to as atherosclerosis remains the best understood cause for CVD, but little is known about the origin of these plaques and their specific forms, which may be more or less stable. There is no better therapeutic strategy to prevent CVD than living a healthy life. The American Heart Foundation (https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living) suggests besides eating right and being physically active, that real health includes getting enough sleep, managing stress, and connecting socially. #CVD #atherosclerosis #health #blood
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4.68 -> cardiovascular disease or CVD refers to
a variety of problems with the heart or
10.95 -> blood vessels including heart attacks, heart
failure and stroke. Together they are the
16.8 -> number one cause of death globally, estimated
at nearly 18 million deaths in 2015 and rising.
26.75 -> Initial symptoms, such as unexplained chest
pains or exhaustion after only moderate
32.09 -> physical exertion are frequently ignored
and thus many patients are only treated
37.13 -> after suffering a heart attack or stroke.
The aim of the EU funded project SYSVASC was
44.15 -> to use a systems medicine approach to better
understand the development of CVD and defined
49.97 -> so-called biomarkers for it. Researchers hope that
by using a comprehensive collection of clinical
57.31 -> and experimental data to generate computer
models of the disease, they could identify
62.38 -> novel molecular targets suitable for early disease
prediction. In many cases cardiovascular disease
70.09 -> is caused by the chronic inflammatory condition
atherosclerosis. Due to unhealthy eating habits
76.21 -> and a lack of exercise deposits of fat
cholesterol and other substances present
81.7 -> in the blood build up over many years inside
the arteries. White blood cells are attracted,
87.58 -> triggering an inflammatory process over time the
resulting plaques cause the arteries to narrow
93.85 -> and harden obstructing blood flow. However not
all patients appear to have stable plaques which
101.29 -> build up and eventually limit blood flow some
patients suffer from unstable plaques which
106.9 -> pose an additional threat. Unstable plaques are
prone to sudden rupture which causes local blood
113.89 -> clotting and may even completely block vessels
if this happens in the coronary artery the heart
120.46 -> may become starved of oxygen resulting in the
death of cardiac muscle cells and heart attack.
135.7 -> Physical exercise in the healthy diet prevent
all forms of CVD, while drinking and smoking
141.64 -> are risk factors. As atherosclerosis progresses
patients are increasingly exhausted after physical
149.17 -> exertion, while severe cases cannot participate in
everyday activities like walking uphill. Currently
156.88 -> clinicians do not fully understand why CVD
progresses faster in some patients than in
162.43 -> others. We know from studying tissue that unstable
plaques have a thin fibrous cap over a large lipid
169.39 -> core while stable plaques have thick fibrous
caps, that prevents premature rupture. Modern
175.96 -> therapeutic options are available for patients
with CVD to reduce the risk of plaque progression
181.6 -> or rupture. But how can we identify the patients
who would benefit from such a treatment? Diseased
188.29 -> arteries and plaques release molecules into the
blood stream, the SYSVASC consortium set out to
194.74 -> understand how CVD develops and to identify new
targets for therapeutic intervention. Therefore
201.31 -> the SYSVASC consortium used methods such as mass
spectrometry to analyze large numbers of blood
207.94 -> and tissue samples from patients at different
stages of cardiovascular disease to uncover their
213.43 -> molecular composition. SYSVASC researchers have
employed sophisticated methods to identify new
219.82 -> biomarkers which correlate with the severity of
vascular damage. While this work is still ongoing
225.85 -> substantial progress has already been made towards
identifying molecular targets and a specialized
232.06 -> cardiovascular disease knowledge base is available
to support this research. Promising candidates
237.94 -> are being tested for their impact on disease
progression as we speak. Using the tell-tale
243.77 -> molecules that we hope to find clinicians in the
future will be able to identify patients with
249.56 -> unstable plaques. This would allow these patients
to receive preventative therapy to interfere with
255.86 -> the catastrophic and currently unpredictable
events leading to stroke and heart attack.
