Impact of Lifestyle Habits on Cardiovascular Health

The assignment focuses on the relationship between lifestyle habits and cardiac health, highlighting the importance of age, sex, alcohol, and tobacco consumption as risk factors. It also covers cardiovascular diseases involving the heart or blood vessels, emphasizing the need to address unhealthy habits like smoking and poor diet for improved patient outcomes.

Health Determinants
effect on
Cardiac disease - Acute Stress

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) can be considered as a category of diseases that
involves the blood vessels and the heart. On an approximation, 90% of CVD devices
can be prevented. Atherosclerosis involves strokes, all the coronary artery diseases,
periphery artery diseases etc. These can be caused by smoking, obesity and high blood
pressure. In the essay, the chosen health determination which will beinternally
discussed about is Acute Stress (Yilmaz & et.al, 2011). Negative lifestyle behaviour can
have a huge and bad impact on the cardiac patients. These behavioural activities can
be unhealthy diet, obesity, inactivity in physical behaviour,tobacco and alcohol
consumption etc. Saturated and trans fat are connected to heart diseases and may
cause atherosclerosis. Lack of physical activity can lead to obesity and related factors. It
is actually extra body fact which means high levels of bad cholesterol and triglyceride
levels. It can further lead to high blood pressure also which directly effects the heart.
Cardiac diseases are the diseases that are connected with heart and it involves
the blood vessels also. These are acting as the leading cause of death worldwide but on
an estimation, 90% of these diseases can be prevented. It includes various coronary
artery diseases and heart attack also, which is scientifically known as myocardial
infarction. There are various types of cardiovascular diseases that involves the heart
and the blood vessels. The ones involving the vessels are called vascular diseases.
These can be coronary artery diseases, cerebrovascular, aortic aneurysm etc. Diseases
involving the heart are cardiomyopathy, heart failure, in which the heart becomes
unable to supply the sufficient amount of blood to the tissues for them to achieve their
metabolic requirements.
Various risk factors are also there such as age, alcohol and tobacco
consumption, inappropriate diet which causes these diseases. Age is considered as the
most important risk factor which has the largest impact on cardiac diseases. When
comparing the sex, men are at a greater risk of developing these problems than pre
menopausal women (Thoits, 2010). After menopause, the risk factors of a woman and a
man remains at same levels. Use of tobacco contributes to an approx of 10% of these
cardiovascular diseases. That 10% is also a bigger fraction for causing any damage to
the human body. It can cause throat cancers and damage all the cells in the area by
which the individual cannot be able to sense any thing on the specific area.These

diseases can be predicted before an extreme cardiovascular event can happen, like any
pre existing cardiac disease or event such as heart attack or stroke. Some other factors
that can behave as predictors are age, smoking, blood lipids, sex etc. These may be
evaluated to analyse the future risk and the prevention.
Acute stress is termed as a type of disorder that can be caused by several
factors as extreme anxiety, severe traumatic situations as someone's death etc. In
response to those disturbing events, the individual faces dissociative symptoms. It badly
effects the cardiac area at cellular level. It induces cardiac mast cell activation and
releases histamine (Lopaschuk & et.al, 2010). It is produced by the basophils and mast
cells that is being found in the connective tissues in order to response the foreign
pathogens. ASD is termed as Acute stress disorder which develops a sort of fear,
helplessness in an individual. These events can be any traumatic situation, such as any
serious accident etc. These can also cause to death sometimes (McEwen & Gianaros,
2010). In actual, there are three types of stress and that are acute, episodic and
chronic. Acute stress is the most general type of stress. ASD and the post disturbing
stress disorder are two different things. ASD can be considered as the mental illness
which can come in first month of that event whereas diagnosis for PTSD cannot be
provided if the symptoms have lasted about a month. There is an acute stress reaction
to the disorder, which is in general a psychological situation produced in a reply of a
terrifying event or situation.
Pathophysiology can be considered as a disordered physiological process in
reference to the diseases and injuries. In the pathophysiology of cardiovascular
diseases, atherosclerosis acts as the larger cause. Various studies show that
atherosclerosis begins from the childhood itself. According to PDAY, the Pathobiological
Determinants of Atherosclerosis in Youth, intimal lesions are produced in the aortas and
almost all of the right coronary arteries. One in a three persons die from complexions
and complications that seem attributable to the atherosclerosis. Some common risk
factors for atherosclerosis can be smoking, hypertension etc. (Steptoe & Kivimäki,
2012). All these factors involves inflammation and oxidation in the artery wall and after
a few time, produces fatty fibrous lesions.

Inflammation and the physical trauma are that two factors that generates lesion
rupture. It further leads to events such as stroke, heart attacks etc. Inflammatory
indicator such as (C-reactive protein) CRP, evaluates the progression of the disease.
Inflammatory marker CD40 and the cardiac myofilament protein troponin acts as an
early indicator for heart attacks. The major cause of heart attack is the coronary
atherosclerosclerosis. The disordered calcium is being transferred to the myofilaments
that generates in HF and in cardiomyopathy. In a human body, any cardiac damage
means the total loss of the cells and that too permanent. As the heart in the human
body does not regenerates, so the cells inside cannot be generated also. That is why
the damage makes a permanent loss of these cells and after that it cannot be
recovered.
Stress has its intense effects on the functioning and structure of the brain at
cellular and also at subcellular levels. Its impact can be various factors like the type and
duration period of the stress. Also it includes the sex and age of the individual. There
are some areas in the brain that are being affected the most by it and these are
hippocampus, amygdala. These act as important parts as they contain glucocorticoid
receptors in an abundant amount. Various stress persuaded changes involve the
dendrites and synaptic spines (McEwen & Gianaros, 2010). There are various factors
that incriminate the psychological stress in cardiovascular pathology. The main part is
myocardial ischemia (MI).
Acute stress also provokes neuroinflammatory situations, out of which many
involves mast cells. These cells behave critical for allergies or allergic reactions. Along
with that, they also releases various vasoactive, inflammatory molecules. These cells
are located near the neurons. There, they are being activated by the neuropeptides.
Cardiac mast cells may also take part in the generation of atherosclerosis, cardiac
ischemia and coronary inflammation (Juster, McEwen & Lupien, 2010). In alliance with
atherosclerosis and MI, mast cells are activated and increased. They also gather in the
shoulder area of coronary atheromas. Histamine that is produced by the cardiovascular
mast cell can make the coronaries more narrow and provide relief to the nerve endings.
There are many lifestyle habits which has a bad impact on the patients of
cardiovascular diseases. It includes various habits as smoking, unhealthy and

inappropriate diet etc. which starts damaging the cells inside and forwards towards the
lung cancer, many other cardiovascular conditions, coronary heart problems and allied
conditions. Cardiac diseases are of two types, one involving the blood vessels and the
other includes the involvement of the heart. The cardiac diseases having an
involvement with the blood vessels are categorised as vascular diseases. The ones
that includes the involvement of the heart are considered as cardiovascular diseases.
Many recent studies said that a sufficient amount of physical activity acts as a
preventive measure against the heart diseases. It may be any physical activity as riding
bicycles, walking, running etc. These can help the person from getting these
cardiovascular diseases (Steptoe & Kivimäki, 2013).
Many times, the physiological factors are not sufficient enough to give beneficial
accounts, there are some other risk factors that might be influenced by the lifestyle
changes such as high BP, blood lipids etc. Acute stress activates the histamine and
releases it in the mice that was before generated from the mast cells. It was not present
in W/W (v) mice. A greater number of cardiac mast cells and higher basal serum and
cardiac histamine in ApoE k/o mice permits the activation of cardiac mast cell that are
able to take part in atherosclerosis. The results may help in efficient understanding of
the stress on the cardiovascular pathology.
Men are at a greater risk of adopting these heart diseases than the women, but
only before the menopause. After it, the risk chances of both the genders behaves the
same. According to many researches, the person suffering from diabetes are more
prone to the cardiovascular diseases. For gender differences, hormonal differences in
the cardiovascular diseases can be termed as a proposed explanation. In women,
estrogen is the sex predominant hormone. It protects the metabolism and the
hemostatic system (Diener & Chan, 2011). Also, it improves the cell function, that is
endothelial. After menopause, the estrogen level decreases. The acute stress has a
huge impact on the cellular level of a system.
From the bronchioles and Alveoli, the pulmonary oxidative stress and
inflammation is being transferred. Further, from there, activation of lung and the reflex
arcs are being transferred to ANS. From there, SNS increases and PSNS decreases. In
vasculature, bloop pressure and the platelet aggregation increases. The heart rate and

the arrhythmia potential increases whereas the HRV level decreases. In the third step,
inflammation and the oxidative stress is being transferred to the blood where PM and
the other constituents are transmitted in the blood. In the blood, in vasculature, the
blood pressure increases and the atherosclerosis level may or may not increase.
Sometimes the platelet aggregation increases and sometimes remain unidentified.
The main blood supplier in the body is aorta and is divided into two parts and that
are two coronary blood vessels or arteries. These further are divided in smaller arteries.
Their work is to provide the purified oxygen to the whole heart muscle. To the right side
of the heart, the right coronary artery supplies the sufficient blood (Juster, McEwen &
Lupien, 2010). The cardiovascular diseases that involves the blood vessels are known
as vascular diseases and the ones that involve the heart beat rate called cardiovascular
diseases. Vascular diseases can be peripheral arterial diseases, renal artery stenosis,
cerebrovascular etc.
Heart failure, pulmonary heart diseases etc. comes under the cardiovascular
problems. Acute stress makes the person sometimes unable to breath and having
terrific chest pain while crying. These are the general symptoms of these problems.
Extended stress levels can make the person weak enough and they can observe
irregular heartbeats too. The stress levels causes depression which follows various
cardiac events (Cooper & Marshall, 2013). These diseases includes a group of
conditions such as left ventricular dysfunctionality, myocardial infarction etc. generated
from a procedure of atherosclerosis. It further causes to the collection of plaque in the
coronary arteries. The whole procedure behaves very complex and complicated and
constitutes of many inflammatory and immune processes. It may take few or many
years for the development. Stress, itself is a very complicated phenomenon which
happens when the demand increases from the adaptable capacity. When that
appropriate demand does not being satisfied, the stress level of an individual increases.
As the coronary artery disease are considered as the general type of heart
diseases and of the heart failure too. After some time when arteries supplying blood to
the heart muscles is restricted because of huge deposits of fat, the process is called
atherosclerosis. The plaques can also build up and then results in reduced flow of the
blood to the heart. Acute stress which are considered as short term stresses, can

increase the stress hormones (Lopaschuk & et.al, 2010). The hormone for stress in our
body is adrenaline, cortisol and non adrenaline. At this time, the heart beat increases to
an extent that it increases the level of blood pressure as well. Chronic stress may cause
damage in the whole system of cardiovascular. It can elevate the levels of hormones of
stress and blood pressure. It can further lead to more similar activities like hypertension,
hear attack etc.
Irregular heart rhythms are also known as Cardiac dysrhythmias. It means when
the actual heart beat rate faces some abnormalities. Either, the rate becomes too slow
or too fast. It can be slow as below 50 and can be fast as above 100. Tachycardia is a
term for beats more than 100 in a minute in adults. Below 60 hear beats in a minute is
called as Bradycardia (Diener & Chan, 2011). Irregular heart beats are called
arrhythmia. A normal heart beat rate ranges from 50-100 beats per minute. When the
range occurs below or after the criteria, the rate of heart beat is facing abnormal
changes which cannot be good for a human body. It can be because of other various
reasons also as smoking minimises the internal efficiency of the person, thus creating
problems after a few time in breathing, facing throat issues and may cause throat
cancer also, destroying all the cells etc. It also decreases the level of stamina in an
individual.
Heart blocks are also known as AV blocks as the majority of them come from
pathology in the atrioventricular node. The people who have abnormal heart beat rates
are treated with blood thinners for minimising the risk of any complex or complicated
situations. Those who are suffering from severe symptoms may get a jolt of electricity
as a treatment in the form of defibrillation. It is not necessary that both the abnormal
heart beat rate and arrhythmia can occur at the same time. It may occur at different
times. Between the brain and the heart, there is a dynamic level of interaction, more
active in the negative setting instincts (Cooper & Marshall, 2013). Acute stress has a
huge impact on the heart rhythms. Acute stress may lead to change in regular
behaviours and increase the rate of heart problems such as higher cholesterol levels
and higher blood pressure. After such activities , the adrenaline hormone releases and
increases the heart beat rate in a human body.

From the essay, it has been concluded that the health determinant used here is
acute stress and how it effects the coronary artery, irregular heart beats and cardiac
muscle damage at the cellular levels. Many lifestyle changes such as smoking,
inappropriate health habits etc. can increase the risk in the cardiovascular patients.
Acute stress highly impacts the heart beat rates, any damages in the heart muscles etc.
Various risk factors are also there which have a huge impact like age, sex alcohol and
tobacco consumption etc. out of which age is considered as the most important factor
for these risks. Cardiac diseases are the diseases that either involve the blood vessels
or the heart. The ones involving the heart are called cardiovascular diseases and ones
involving blood vessels are considered as vascular diseases. For the improvements in
the health of these patients, one can focus on leaving these lifestyle habits like smoking
and unhealthy food habits. These can help in any further complications.

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