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The Cardiovascular System Of Atherosclerosis

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The cardiovascular system is composed of thousands of tubes, known as blood vessels that blood travels in. Blood is constantly being pumped to and from the heart through arteries and veins, respectively. Oxygen, nutrients, water, wastes are just some of the substances moving throughout the body via the blood vessels. Because this system is very complex, many issues can occur which inhibit the cardiovascular system from doing its job. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a category of diseases that relate to the heart and blood vessels. The most common form of CVD is coronary heart disease and involves the buildup plaque in the arteries, namely the coronary arteries. This occurs when cholesterol, cellular waste, and other types of…show more content…
Proteins form over the platelets called fibrin that make the blood clot and stick the platelets together. When this process gets repeated it can cause a clot, or thrombus. As a result, this forces the heart to work much harder to pump blood efficiently due to the arteries becoming narrower. Continued buildup of plaque can lead to heart disease and cause a heart attack as well as many other health complications. There are many known risk factors that have been shown to correlate with heart disease. High blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, lack of physical activity, and obesity, are all risk factors that correlation to and increase risk of CVD. Fortunately, all of these risk factors can be managed and controlled through a variety of ways. Although CVD is mostly preventable, cardiovascular disease remains as one of the leading causes of death in the United States (Erhardt, 2009).
Risk Factors There are many risk factors associated with CVD and they are divided into two categories. The first is uncontrollable risk factors, which includes sex, age, family history, and race. These factors cannot be changed or managed. The other category is controllable risk factors that fortunately can be improve through lifestyle changes in order to reduce the risk of CVD. Hypertension (HTN) or high blood pressure (HBP), is a risk factor of CVD that has been well established (Gu, 2008; Qiuping, 2008). When measuring blood
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