Heart disease: origins of disease


        HEART DISEASE: ORIGINS OF DISEASE
To the patient, who judges by his own feelings of comfort or disability, the onset of cardiac disease may be rapid or gradual. Comparatively rarely, there is a genuinely sudden disruption within the heart, due to gross over-exertion; but even here there have been degenerative changes operating for many months, and more probably years. The individual who avoids medication of all kinds is less likely to suffer such a collapse, but the typical citizen who takes aspirins for everyday discomforts is prone to be 'struck down without warning'.
In other circumstances, there may be quite serious diseased conditions of the heart existing for years without any marked discomfort to the patient. This can occur thanks to the enormous powers of compensation which the heart naturally possesses. It becomes strengthened and enlarged to make up for inefficiencies. (This must entail abnormally high drains upon vitality, but need not be evident outwardly for many years.) In this state, and in some other derangements of function, the patient is quite likely to react with what seems like unreasonable severity to any sudden shock or accident. If fortunate enough to escape these upsets, he may travel along his routine path for long enough without being aware of his lack of vital reserve.
In yet other cases, there may be no dramatic incident' to mark the arrival of recognizable disease; the system just gradually deteriorates until a level is reached inadequate to maintain the customary daily routines. Any attempt to make a slightly greater effort then merely produces failure and an awareness that all is not well.
Here, too, there must have been signs of substandard health and function for a considerable period beforehand. Signs which would be quite evident to the trained eye, although possibly imperceptible to the uninformed lay observer or patient. One intention of this writing is to provide the reader with the information which should enable him to detect some of the commoner early signs, and so to make reasonable changes for the better in his daily routines. It is much easier to diminish the strains on any overworking machine than to repair the results of continued overload.
For the average layman, however, it is quite impossible to interpret all symptoms reliably. The competent practitioner has to be able to coordinate information not only about the onset, duration and symptoms of the disease; he has to discover all possible about the patient's childhood and subsequent history, as well as his general family background. In this way, the practitioner finds that many symptoms apparently related to the heart are the result of disorder in liver, lungs, kidneys, stomach, intestines, skin or some other organ or tissue perhaps far removed from the heart. Some of these relationships we shall deal with later; for the moment the reader must accept that correct interpretation is virtually impossible without professional training and experience.
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Cardio & Blood-?holesterol
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