What are cardiovascular diseases?
What causes cardiovascular diseases?
What are the potential consequences of cardiovascular disease?
Treatment of cardiovascular diseases
What are cardiovascular diseases?
In the broadest sense, cardiovascular diseases relate to the heart and blood circulation. Extremely diverse in nature, cardiovascular diseases can affect the coronary vessels (coronary illness), cardiac muscle (heart failure), cardiac valves (aortic valve insufficiency, aortic stenosis, etc.), cardiac rhythm (arrhythmia, fibrillation, etc.) or endocardium (infectious or rheumatic endocarditis).
What causes cardiovascular diseases?
Cardiovascular diseases have a host of causes affecting different parts of the cardiovascular system (blood vessels, heart).
Blood vessel illnesses often involve arteriosclerotic diseases and associated risks such as hypercholesterinaemia arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, smoking hazards, etc. The resultant arteriosclerosis can cause circulatory disorders in a variety of organs. Affected in particular are the heart (coronary disease with angina pectoris, heart attack), brain (stroke), lower extremities (peripheral arterial obstructive disease), or more rarely, the inner ear (disruptions in micro-circulation leading to acute hearing loss).
What are the potential consequences of cardiovascular disease?
The consequences of cardiovascular disease are very diverse. They can range, for instance, between high blood pressure, cardiac insufficiency, arrhythmia and heart attack, depending on which part of the cardiovascular system is affected. The consequences are usually attributable to arteriosclerotic alterations in the blood vessels (calcification). In Western industrialised countries, most people die of the consequences of arteriosclerosis.
Arteriosclerosis involves an inflammatory alteration of the vessels' inner walls. One contributing factor is an excessively high cholesterol level in the blood. The excessively high cholesterol level in many patients with a cardiovascular condition is due to a genetic metabolic disorder of the liver. Excess cholesterol is deposited on the vessels' walls where it leads to a formation of plaque. Frequently encapsulated, the plaque initially causes no problems. However, if a stable deposit (calcification) becomes unstable and ruptures, the affected organ - usually the heart - suffers an infarct (acute heart attack).
Treatment of cardiovascular diseases
An LDL concentration of up to 200 mg per dl of blood is considered acceptable for healthy persons. However, the recommended LDL concentration limit is just 100 mg/dl for patients with a cardiovascular condition, and as low as 70 mg/dl for people suffering from diabetes. In the case of severe cardiovascular illnesses, these recommended targets are usually not achievable by means of medicinal therapy. If a patient cannot achieve a set target by altering their lifestyle, observing a diet and taking medication meant to lower blood lipid levels, the patient is allowed to receive H.E.L.P. apheresis after passing a strict assessment and approval procedure. H.E.L.P. apheresis lowers blood lipid levels by more than 60% per therapy session. In combination with the prescribed medicines, this permits cholesterol levels to be lowered by 80% with respect to initial values. A selective lowering of certain plasma proteins and plasma lipoproteins also improves the microcirculation of blood in capillary vessels. This, in turn, notably improves the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the affected organs.