Biology: Homeostasis and Cardiovascular Disorders

This report discusses the concepts of biology, homeostasis, and cardiovascular disorders such as heart failure and arrhythmia. It explores the impact of these disorders on the balance and functioning of the body, as well as available treatment methods.

Biology
4/14/2019

Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Homeostasis and blood circulation............................................................................................3
Cardiovascular Disorders:..........................................................................................................4
Heart failure............................................................................................................................4
Lifestyle and home remedies..................................................................................................6
Arrhythmia..............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
The report brings about the discussion on the concepts of biology and the two related
disorders or disease in context to human body. In human body, a central organising concept
in biology is the changes that occur in life, and development that takes place through
evolution, from a common origin. Biology is the concept defined as the study of life, and
living organisms, physical structure, chemical processes, and other mechanisms. In this
assignment, I have taken homeostasis as concept of biology in cardiovascular system and the
two related disorders as ‘heart failure’ and ‘Arrhythmia’. Thus, the discussion will consist of
the description of the disorder in terms of the balance, imbalance, signs and symptoms and
other homeostatic disruption. heart-beat rate or blood circulation will be elaborated as part of
the biological concept in this report under the aspects of cardiovascular system. Further, in
the later part of report, the analysis will consist of the methods or treatment available for
these disorders or diseases discussed in the assignment.
Homeostasis and blood circulation
The biological concepts here discussed are homeostasis and blood circulation as under
cardiovascular system. The term homeostasis refers to the ability of the body or cell to
establish or maintain a state of equilibrium or balance within internal environment while
being in contact with external environment of body. Human’s internal body temperature is an
example of homeostasis, i.e. person with a healthy body retains the temperature of 98.6
degree Fahrenheit.
The concept of blood circulation refers to the movement of blood through the vessels
of the body induced by pumping action of the heart. It acts to perform the function of
distributing nutrients and oxygen and removing the waste products from the body.
It has been analysed that cardiovascular system delivers oxygen and nutrients in the
blood to the cells surrounding in the body to maintain homeostasis. Blood in the circulatory
or cardiovascular system is required throughout the body for other systems to work properly.

In simple words, it has been analysed that the biological concept of homeostasis and blood
circulation and nutrients transportation has taken in this report. The disorders or disease
related to these concepts of biology includes heart failure and Arrhythmia (Kishi, 2016).
Cardiovascular Disorders:
Heart failure
Cardiovascular disease generally refers to the conditions, which involve narrowed or
blocked blood vessels further leading to the heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and others.
Heart failure is one of the most common health issues, which has selected in this discussion.
Congestive heart failure occurs when the heart muscles do not lacks effectiveness in
performing the function of pumping of blood. Now, the disorder will be studied in context to
following aspects:
a. damage or imbalance
Heart failure occurs due to the damage of the heart muscle that further weakens the heart
and affects the function of pumping causing damage to the heart. Therefore, one major
aspect of damage is to the heart of the patient, which causes imbalance to perform the other,
daily life activities. Moreover, the damage due to the heart disease describes about kidney
and lungs in the process of circulation. As when the heart becomes weak or stiff, and cannot
pump blood properly than the fluid develops in the kidney and lungs. This problem further
affects the process of excretion of waste and has effects on the heart valves, as the human
heart has valves, which helps the flow of blood forward in the body (Kishi, 2016).
b. signs and symptoms
In context to the cardiovascular system as one most important system, a number of signs
and symptoms develop in the body. These signs and symptoms consist of shortness of
breath (dyspnea), failure or weakness, swelling, irregular heartbeat, increased urination,
cough, rapid weight gain, chest pain, lack of appetite and nausea and difficulty in
concentration. Difficulty or shortness of breath is one common sign or symptom of the heart

disease, which usually occurs to the person at sleep, or during any activity. Heart
palpitations are another aspect that may be observed as warning sign of chronic health
(Hamine et al., 2015).
c. Homeostatic disruption
The term homeostatic disruption refers to the condition when the cells, in the human
body do not function properly. Further, the improper functioning of cells in the body or
disruption may lead to disease, or illness. As the study has revealed the fact that, heart
maintains the balance of homeostasis through the regulation of oxygen levels throughout the
body. Improper functioning of heart muscles, or heart rates causing imbalance to other
body functions leads to the situation of homeostatic disruption. Thus, cardiovascular or
circulatory homeostasis is associated to interactions with multiple organs, and disruption of
balance considered as heart failure.
In context to the above issue of homeostatic disruption, an overactive renin-
angiotensin system, excess oxidative stress and excess inflammation, and/or decreased nitric
oxide in the brain cause sympathoexcitation in heart failure. This has been revealed through
many studies conducted on the assessment of heart diseases (Rosin et al., 2015).
Heart failure affecting the functioning of cardiovascular system of body mentioning
various signs, symptoms, and other consequences determine a cause and effect relationship.
Now, the discussion will describe the relationship between the points explained in the above
three aspects, i.e. damage/imbalance, signs and symptoms and homeostatic disruption. Heart
failure causes heart or heart muscle to pump less blood to the vessels, and others. This further
decreases transport of oxygen to the various body parts, i.e. lungs, kidney, and other nutrients
required to function. In addition, the damage to cells is found, and multi-organ failure is
another issue that disturbs the homeostasis and leads to symptoms such as shortness of
breath, nausea and others. It may lead to the situation of death determines the relationship
between these three aspects (Hartupee & Mann, 2017).
The research stated that heart failure is not cured totally depending on the stage, and
damage to the heart muscle may be improved. Thus, heart failure is recognised as chronic
disease which requires lifelong treatment, and management. For an example, it has found

that repairing a heart valve or controlling a fast heart rhythm may reverse heart failure.
However, in some cases, heart failure is managed through maintaining a balance between
medications and use of devices.
Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors: these drugs work by increasing the
resistance power of the patient of systolic heart failure, and help them live better (Yancy et al.
2017s). Diuretics, also called, as water pills are helpful in managing the fluid within body,
and increases or makes urination more frequent (Køber et al., 2016).
Palliative care and end-of-life care: the treatment of heart failure also includes palliative
care approach when the medications or other treatment is ineffective. This works as the
hospice care is provided to the patient, allows friends and family to undertake the care of the
patient, and reduce negative impact on health (Guo, Harding & Higginson, 2018).
Lifestyle and home remedies
These aspects of remedies at home, such as reducing stress, and consumption of less
alcohol, or smoke is major way to control heart failure. In addition, ensuring taking nutrients
and healthy diet will help in maintaining good health along with use of other medications and
treatment therapies. Heart transplant may also work, as they may improve the survival, and
quality of life with the help of healthy heart donor.
Arrhythmia
An arrhythmia is defined as the problem with the rate or rhythm of heartbeat, which
means that the heart beats with an irregular pattern, i.e. either too slowly or fast. the situation
when the human heart beats faster than normal, it is called tachycardia.
On the other hand, when the heart beats too slow than normal it is called as
bradycardia. Amongst these, the most common type of arrhythmia is atrial fibrillation that
causes an irregular and fast heartbeat. In some of the extreme cases the symptoms or heart
problem of arrhythmia may lead to stoke or cardiac arrest of the individual. The issue of
arrhythmia may be caused due to number of factors, such as alcohol abuse, diabetes, drug
abuse, hypertension, and heart disease. It affects the blood circulation, within body due to the
improper pumping of blood in the heart (Xie et al., 2016).
a. damage or imbalance

One of the major impact or damage has been found in context to the heart disease called as
arrhythmia. The situation of bradycardia, and tachycardia disturbs the blood circulation or
pumping of blood for a prolonged period, leads to the issue of heart failure to the patient.
Another major damage or imbalance caused due to disorganised firing of impulses from the
ventricles may lead to the death of an individual. Ventricular arrhythmia is further found to
be major cause of sudden cardiac arrest (Ali et al., 2019).
b. Signs and symptoms :
Some of the noticeable symptoms of the heart arrhythmia include shortness of breath,
pain in the chest, dizziness, and sweating of the person. this impacts the pumping of blood
and overall functioning of the heart. Major signs of the issue included the changes in the
beats or heart rate.
c. Homeostatic disruption
The heart disease in the cardiovascular systems play important role in disturbing the state
of balance of human body. The research on the illness has stated that arrhythmias leads to the
damage to the heart , and this also acts as risk factor leading to arrhythmias. Ineffectiveness
of the pumping of blood may create the problem of clot, clogging, and cutting off the flow of
blood to the heart, brain and other organs. Thus, hampered circulation of blood, to all the
body parts is one of the aspect which states about the issue of homeostatic disruption of the
human body (Kotas & Medzhitov, 2015).
The relationship between the above three aspects i.e. damage, signs & symptoms and the
leading disturbance to the homeostasis is determined in certain way. When the heart or
cardiac arrhythmia enough to affect the functioning of the heart of the person, than
symptoms that are more serious may develop fatigue, or dizziness and other major symptoms
may lead to bigger issues such as heart failure, which further creates imbalance in the body.
In this way, the relationship between these three aspects in context to arrhythmia is described
(Magden et al., 2016).
Treatment of arrhythmia
To discuss the methods of treatment available, which ensures improvement of the
condition of heart or health of individual, includes photodynamic therapy. Therefore, light-

based approaches are used to treat the cardiovascular disease of arrhythmia Karathanos,
Boyle & Trayanova, 2016).
Cardioversion, also called as defibrillation is used at the time of emergency to prevent
the person from the situation of death due to fatal ventricular arrhythmias, result to sudden
cardiac arrest (Lip et al., 2015). Medications to treat the issue of heart disease, arrhythmia
includes :
Beta blockers, works in a manner by reducing the heart rate and cardiac output and
lowering the blood pressure by blocking the effects of adrenalin.
Channel blockers, also considered effective medications works by interrupting the
movement of calcium into heart and blood vessel tissue. They also help in controlling the
disturbed pattern or heart rate or rhythms (Doi, Itoh & Yamashiro, 2017).
Anticoagulants, or blood thinners work treating patients of heart problems by making
harder for blood to clot, or coagulate. Hence, these are some of the available methods of
treating the patients.
Conclusion
To conclude the above discussion it has been analysed that cardiovascular system is
one of the vital human body system, as it contains the main parts of the system. The
assignment has described above the biological concept of homeostasis, and blood circulation,
and related disorders affecting the cardiovascular system. The circulatory system carries
oxygen, nutrients, and hormones to cells, and removes waste products, like carbon dioxide.
Two related disorders, heart failure, and arrhythmia has described along with their impacts on
the heart or survival. Hence, the report has discussed all these concepts and listed some
treatment methods available to ensure good heart condition of the person.

References
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Doi, Y., Itoh, M. & Yamashiro, K. (2017). General Anesthesia for Treatment of
Arrhythmia under Magnetic Influence of Remote Magnetic Navigation
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Guo, P., Harding, R. & Higginson, I. J. (2018). Palliative care needs of heart failure
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Karathanos, T. V., Boyle, P. M. & Trayanova, N. A. (2016). Light-based approaches to
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