Heart Attack and Its Causes: Mechanisms, Genetics and Remedies

This essay delves into the causes and remedies for heart attacks, primarily focusing on arterial blockages due to blood clot formation. It explores contemporary and recent theories behind these blockages, including the role of fat deposits (atheroma) leading to inflammation and plaque formation. The essay highlights the genetic basis of cardiovascular diseases, mentioning genes like MEF2A, LGALS2, and LTA, and emphasizes that heart diseases are likely influenced by multiple genes and lifestyle factors such as diet, smoking, and alcohol consumption. Diagnostic methods like blood tests, Doppler ultrasounds, electrocardiograms, angiograms, and CT scans are discussed, along with their limitations in detecting vulnerable plaques. The importance of diet, particularly avoiding trans fats and limiting alcohol, is stressed, and the essay concludes by underscoring the ongoing research into heart attacks and the significance of physical activity, diet, and medication in prevention. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments.

Running head: HEART ATTACK AND IT’S CAUSES
HEART ATTACK AND ITS CAUSES
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1HEART ATTACK AND IT’S CAUSES
Heart attacks, their causes and remedies
Heart disease
Heart attacks are mainly cause due to the blockage of the arteries of the heart due to the
formation of blood clots.
The essay aims to focus on the mechanisms of heart blockages, the contemporary theories
and the recent theories behind the arterial blockage. The essay also provides an insight to the
genetic basis of the cardiovascular diseases and the possible remedies.
The building of the fat deposits in the arteries acts a potent silent killer that can cause
coronary heart disease. The atheroma or the fatty materials starts accumulating in the arterial
lining form the young age. These materials are foreign to the body and hence cause
inflammation1. The artery tries to clean up the inflammation by depositing a layer of fibrous
material above the fatty core. Over the time it forms plaques. This process gradually continues
with the formation of more similar plaques, causing more inflammation and bigger plaques.
Softer plaques that are rich in cholesterols are unstable and may rupture causing the blood to
clot. The clot formation further narrows the artery restricting the flow of blood1. If the flow is
completely blocked then it the affected muscle loses its oxygen, leading to a heart attack. If the
blockage occurs in an artery that feeds the heart, causes a heart attack, and when the clot forms
on an arthroscelerotic plaque in the blood vessels of the brain then arthrothrombotic stroke
1 Wang, Qing. “Advances in the Genetic Basis of Coronary Artery Disease.” Current atherosclerosis reports 7.3
(2005): 235–241. Print

2HEART ATTACK AND IT’S CAUSES
occurs2. Cerebral embolism may occur when a wandering clot or an embolus is carried and is
lodged in an artery leading to brain, then the blood flow gets blocked1.
Exciting advance has been made in the genetic studies of the coronary heart diseases. The
genes which is linked with CAD and myocardial infarction is identified as MEF2A, located on
the chromosome 15q26.3 and is responsible for the encoding of a transcriptional factor having a
high level of expression in the coronary endothelium. It has been found that about 2-3% of CAD
carry mutation in that gene. Recent identification of new genes has been made or arthrosclerosis,
including the LGALS2 and LTA for MI and stroke1. Heart diseases are not caused by one or two
mutations in the genes. He suspects that there are dozens of genes that end up as the predisposing
factors, like some affecting the arterial integrity, others inflammation, other helping in the
processing of the lipids. These factors are largely compounded by the diets and the life style of
each individual. Smoking, alcohol and diets rich in fats contribute to heart disease3.
Blood tests, Doppler ultrasounds, ankle-brachial index, Electrocardiogram, angiogram
and other imaging tests can be used in detecting arthrosclerosis2. There are no such standard tests
for detecting arthrosclerosis, but none of them are fool proof. Angiography can detect how much
blood is flowing through the artery but it cannot detect the plaques embedded in the artery that
causes the attack4. A computed tomography scanner can be useful for imaging the plaques. An
2 Katz, Arnold M., and Marvin A. Konstam. Heart failure: pathophysiology, molecular biology, and clinical
management. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2012
3 Writing Committee:, et al. "Our time: a call to save preventable death from cardiovascular disease (heart disease
and stroke)." European heart journal 33.23 (2012): 2910-2916.
4 Ponikowski, Piotr, et al. "2016 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure:
The Task Force for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure of the European Society of
Cardiology (ESC) Developed with the special contribution of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the
ESC." European heart journal37.27 (2016): 2129-2200

3HEART ATTACK AND IT’S CAUSES
injectable dye can highlight the arteries and produce clear picture of the arterial walls. It should
be considered that CT scan is the imperfect tool as the dose of radiation can cause ill effects in a
healthy patient annual exam. Furthermore it cannot detect which of the plaques are likely to
crack and cause heart attack2.
Diets play an important role in heart diseases. Fried and processed food rich in transfat
can increase the cholesterol levels in the blood leading to the formation of the cholesterol rich
plaques5. It is better to follow low saturated fats and high plant fibers. Alcohol can be linked to
heart diseases as it can increase the heart rate developing hypertension. Heavy alcohol
consumption may cause cardiomyopathy; damage to the blood vessels3.
Scientists have been trying to find out the exact reason behind the occurrence of the heart
attacks and hence the scope of research is at large. Appropriate physical activities, diets and
medications are the key to prevent heart attacks.
5 Caplan, Pat, ed. Food, health and identity. Routledge, 2013.

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References
Caplan, Pat, ed. Food, health and identity. Routledge, 2013.
Katz, Arnold M., and Marvin A. Konstam. Heart failure: pathophysiology, molecular biology,
and clinical management. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2012.
Ponikowski, Piotr, et al. "2016 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and
chronic heart failure: The Task Force for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart
failure of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Developed with the special contribution of
the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the ESC." European heart journal37.27 (2016): 2129-
2200.
Wang, Qing. “Advances in the Genetic Basis of Coronary Artery Disease.” Current
atherosclerosis reports 7.3 (2005): 235–241. Print.
Writing Committee:, et al. "Our time: a call to save preventable death from cardiovascular
disease (heart disease and stroke)." European heart journal 33.23 (2012): 2910-2916.