What is ischemia?
Ischemia is a condition in which the blood flow (and thus oxygen) is restricted or reduced in a part of the body. Cardiac ischemia is the name for decreased blood flow and oxygen to the heart muscle.
What is ischemic heart disease?
It’s the term given to heart problems caused by narrowed heart arteries. When arteries are narrowed, less blood and oxygen reaches the heart muscle. This is also called coronary artery disease and coronary heart disease. This can ultimately lead to heart attack.

Ischemia often causes chest pain or discomfort known as angina pectoris.

What is silent ischemia?
Many people may have ischemic episodes without knowing it. These people have ischemia without pain — silent ischemia. They may have a heart attack with no prior warning. People with angina also may have undiagnosed episodes of silent ischemia. In addition, people who have had previous heart attacks or those with diabetes are especially at risk for developing silent ischemia.

Many people rarely think about the possibility of having a stroke, believing that stroke happens only to old people, to people who are sick with other major diseases, or mostly to men.

The reality is much different. According to the National Stroke Association, stroke is the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States, affecting people of all ages and races, both men and women. In fact, 55,000 more women than men have a stroke each year, and women are twice as likely to die from stroke than from breast cancer in any given year.

This are the key elements of identifying and responding to a stroke:

F—Face drooping. Does one side of the face droop, or does the person say it feels numb? Ask the person to smile to help you determine whether or not the face is drooping.

A—Arm weakness. Ask the person to raise his or her arms. Watch to see if one arm drifts back downward, as if the person is having trouble controlling it.

S—Speech difficulty. Is the person having trouble speaking, or is it difficult to understand what he or she is saying? Ask the person to repeat a simple sentence, such as “The sky is blue,” and see if he or she is able to do so.

T—Time to call. If any symptoms—face drooping, arm weakness or speech difficulty—is present, call 911 immediately. Do this even if the symptoms occur but later seem to go away.

-Do you need a little help in getting yourself up off the couch to exercise? We all know that exercise can help reduce the risk of many diseases, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke.

-Staying fit can also reduce your risk of cancer, and if you are a cancer survivor, exercise can increase your likelihood of surviving.
-In a recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers looked at the impact of physical activity on survival in a group of over 2,000 adults who had been diagnosed with invasive but non-metastatic colon cancer.
-Compared to the couch potatoes, patients who engaged in 8.75 or more METS (metabolic equivalents) of exercise per week, equal to approximately 150 minutes of brisk walking, reduced their mortality by a whopping 42 percent.

-Why does exercise improve survival from cancer? One theory is that it reduces stress and inflammation, both of which are known to drive cancer cell growth.

Persistent, recurrent problems with sexual response or desire — that distress you or strain your relationship with your partner — are known medically as female sexual dysfunction.
Female sexual dysfunction can occur at all stages of life, and it may be ongoing or happen only once in a while.

You may experience more than one type of female sexual dysfunction. Types include:

Low sexual desire. You have diminished libido, or lack of sex drive.
Sexual arousal disorder. Your desire for sex might be intact, but you have difficulty or are unable to become aroused or maintain arousal during sexual activity.
Orgasmic disorder. You have persistent or recurrent difficulty in achieving orgasm after sufficient sexual arousal and ongoing stimulation.
Sexual pain disorder. You have pain associated with sexual stimulation or vaginal contact.

Young women who eat plenty of blueberries and strawberries may have a reduced risk of heart attack, a new study has found.
The reason, researchers believe, is that those fruits, like other red and blue fruits and vegetables, have high concentrations of anthocyanin, a flavonoid that may help lower blood pressure and improve blood vessel function.
The scientists behind the study are from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of East Anglia in the UK.
These flavonoids are also found in grapes and wine, blackberries, eggplant, and other fruits. According to the new research the anthocyanins may provide other cardiovascular benefits — including preventing the buildup of heart attack-causing plaque.

Angioplasty is used to re-open coronary arteries that have become narrowed by atherosclerotic plaque. This procedure is used to treat blocked coronary arteries as well as arteries in other parts of the body. Angioplasty requires only local anesthesia and sometimes mild sedation (relaxing medications). Patients typically spend the night in the hospital and are able to return to normal activity in a day or two.

Balloon Angioplasty

During balloon angioplasty, a thin tube (catheter) is inserted into an artery in the groin. A tiny balloon is then passed through the catheter and is guided to the narrowed area(s), where the balloon is expanded to stretch open the artery.

Snoring could be an early warning sign of the risk of heart disease, than those who are overweight, smoke or have high cholesterol, says study.
Snoring is tied to increased thickening of the lining of the two large blood vessels that supply the brain with oxygenated blood.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) – a sleep disorder that occurs due to the collapse of the airway in the throat during sleep and causes loud snoring and periodic pauses in breathing - has long been linked to cardiovascular disease, along with a host of other serious health issues.
But the risk for cardiovascular disease may actually begin with snoring, long before it becomes OSA.
Snoring is more than a bedtime annoyance and it shouldn’t be ignored. Patients need to seek treatment in the same way they would if they had sleep apnea, high blood pressure or other risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Lowering LDL cholesterol is currently one of the primary public health initiatives preventing atherosclerosis and heart attacks. The benefits of lowering LDL cholesterol are:

Reducing or stopping the formation of new cholesterol plaques on the artery walls
Reducing existing cholesterol plaques on the artery walls and widening the arteries
Preventing the rupture of cholesterol plaques, which initiates blood clot formation and blocks blood vessels
Decreasing the risk of heart attacks
Decreasing the risk of strokes
Decreasing the risk of peripheral artery disease

The same measures that decrease narrowing in coronary arteries also may benefit the carotid and cerebral arteries (arteries that deliver blood to the brain) as well as the femoral arteries that supplies blood to the legs.

Experts know that many different factors are linked to high blood pressure. But experts still don’t fully understand the exact cause. Factors that are linked to high blood pressure include:
• Aging.
• Drinking more than 2 alcoholic drinks a day for men or more than 1 alcoholic drink a day for women.
• Eating a lot of sodium (salt).
• Being overweight or obese.
• Not exercising.
• Being under a lot of stress.
• Eating a diet low in potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
• Being insulin-resistant.
Primary, or essential, high blood pressure is the most common type of high blood pressure. Most people who have high blood pressure have primary high blood pressure.
Secondary high blood pressure, which is caused by another disease or medicine, is less common.
Elevated blood pressure readings may not always mean that you have high blood pressure. For some people, just being in a medical setting causes their blood pressure to rise. This is called white-coat hypertension.