The Heart And The Liver

As the Directors at the Sharp Rees Medical Facility, we will be talking about the liver. The liver is a very important organ in the human body as it does not just perform one function but is involved in multiple tasks. Some interesting facts about the liver; it weighs under five pounds, it has a shape like a half football and everyone is born with one. Just like most other disease or disorder, if the liver has not been taken care of properly there are many negative outcomes that can affect and destroy the liver. There are many complications when the liver is abused or damage for example cancer, hemochromatosis, gallbladder or

Congenital heart disease is a cardiovascular condition resulting from an abnormality in the structure of the heart. The exact time this defect forms is unknown but it is during the fetal development in the womb. Researchers think the defect could be case partially by genetics and medical conditions of the fetus and the parents. If the baby’s mother had rubella, while pregnant or other conditions such as diabetes could have caused the defect. Some medications that were taken by a pregnant mother could also have caused birth defects. An error on chromosome 22 could also have caused the heart defect. Some symptoms that a person may have a congenital heart may not show up until later in life but many children also have the symptoms. Symptoms of a congenital heart defect are abnormal heartbeat, bluish tint to skin, shortness of breath, dizziness or fainting, and swelling of body tissues and organs.

Cirrhosis is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States and the thirteenth leading cause of death worldwide.1 Cirrhosis is the irreversible fibrosis of the liver characterized by hepatic architectural distortion secondary to fibrous tissue and the formation of regenerative nodules.2 These anatomical changes cause hepatic vascular resistance and an increase in blood flow leading to portal hypertension. Porto-systemic collaterals develop in order to overcome the increased portal pressure gradient.3 Nitric oxide, an endogenous vasodilator is also released in effort to overcome portal pressure with the expense of causing systemic vasodilation and a decrease in blood pressure. As a result, a marked activation of neurohumoral vasoactive factors occurs in an effort to maintain an effective arterial blood pressure. Hypervolemia, increased cardiac index, decreased systemic vascular resistance, and systemic hypotension are manifestations of portal hypertension.3 Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), alcoholism, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) are all major causes of cirrhosis.

Dr. Ruiz’s current research interest is combined liver and kidney transplantation and hepatorenal syndrome. He has published a total of 24 peer review articles which can be viewed at this link (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Ruiz+RM.) He makes approximately four presentations a year: American Transplant Conference, Liver Disease Conference, American Association of the Study of Liver Diseases, and the American Surgical Association. Dr. Ruiz’s current activity is running the Baylor Hispanic Kidney Transplant Clinic.

According to the American Liver Foundation, a healthy liver cleans blood, fights infection processes food and stores energy. The liver is able to regenerate itself, but when it becomes too damaged or is prevented from regenerating, it will fail and no longer be able to keep able to keep one alive (2015). Despite its ability to regenerate, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis is the twelfth leading cause of death of death in the United States. My interest in further exploring liver related deaths is the due to the impact that liver disease has had on my family. My young cousin was born with a malignant tumor on her liver and spent the first several years of her life undergoing surgeries and chemotherapy. She survived the treatment and at the age of 4 was free of cancer. At the age of 24 she was told that her liver was beginning the process of failure and she would need to be put on the transplant liver for long-term survival. My grandmother died of cirrhosis of the liver and my father, after 3 years of treatment for melanoma, was diagnosed with liver failure. He had a procedure to prolong the useful life of his liver, but the damage to his liver will not allow his liver to regenerate and it will likely be liver failure which leads to his death.

Because Congestive Heart Failure has many causes, doctors need to find the underlying cause of the heart failure. So the doctors have to find out how and why the heart is malfunctioning before they can make a diagnosis. They do this by your medical/family history, physical examination, and a series of test. Some of the tests used to discover underlying cause are blood tests to evaluate the function of organs in the body, BNP blood test, X-ray, electrocardiogram (EKG), echocardiogram (ECG), stress test, cardiac catherization, radionuclide ventriculography, or a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Congestive heart failure takes place in persons of different origins everyday. The cause of right sided heart

This case study is about Abdul Chidiac, a 51 year old male, married with 4 children. He had a medical history of hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia and cirrhosis with two admissions in the last six months. He is a smoker and drinks beer, 5-6 bottles per day. As Carithers & McClain (2010) explained the patient’s medical history is another indicator of the risk for cirrhosis; the progression to cirrhosis is adaptable and may take time over weeks or many years. Cirrhosis is a liver disease characterized by permanent scarring of the

"Congestive Heart Failure is the Inability of the heart to maintain the demands of pumping blood with normal efficiency to other organs, such as the brain, liver, and kidneys" (Congestive heart failure, 2008). Without the heart carrying out its functions, all the organs in the body would be deprived of sufficient blood to do its work, the kidney will no longer filter its blood leading to fluid accumulation in areas such as the lungs, liver, legs, and surrounding eye, when this happens, it is called congestive heart failure. "Cardiomyopathy is a situation where there are changes in the heart muscle which prevent part or all the heart from contracting normally" ("Cardiomyopathy,” 2013). This situation could be acquired or inherited problem of the heart muscles resulting in thickness or expansion of the heart making it difficult to pump required blood that the body needed. In this paper, the writer would have the opportunity to discuss the best approach to care that Mr. P battling cardiomyopathy and CHF deserve, the treatment and education he needed that would help him, the method of education, and the teaching care plan.

Cirrhosis is a consequence of chronic liver disease characterized by replacement of normal, healthy liver tissue by fibrotic scar tissue, blocking the flow of blood through the organ and preventing it from working as it should, as well as regenerative nodules leading to progressive loss of liver function. The liver, the largest organ in the body, is vital in keeping the body functioning properly. It removes or neutralizes poisons from the blood, produces immune agents to control infection, and removes germs and bacteria from the blood. It

Additionally, many chronic liver diseases can lead to cirrhosis. For example, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) can lead to cirrhosis and is associated with obesity, hyperlipidemia, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Hereditary metabolic disorders such as hemochromatosis and Wilson disease can also lead to cirrhosis (McCance & Heuther, 2014). It seems the cause of cirrhosis is multifaceted. Additionally, many diseases can lead to cirrhosis and it is understandable why the etiology of cirrhosis has not been parsed out, especially because the cause can differ from a

There are up to more than a billion diseases in the world, and we still have plenty more to discover, and one disease that can be deadly is Chronic Liver Disease. Chronic Liver Disease is a disease that destroys liver cells, and replaces them with “Scare Tissue”, which is a tissue that connects to the organ and creates a scar. In addition, Chronic Liver Disease has multiple stages, the final stage of Chronic Liver Disease is “Cirrhosis” moreover, cirrhosis damages and destroys

The main cause of right sided heart failure is left sided heart failure. This occurs with left sided heart failure, the left ventricle is not able to pump the blood out to the systemic circulation effectively. The pressure in the left ventricle increases, leading to an increase in pressure in the left atrium.

Hepatitis is a medical condition caused inflammation that effect to the liver(2). It is a term used to describe the swelling of the liver, resulting in permanent damage. When the disease, the patient may feel so painful and powerlessness. This disease can be acute or chronic, and people can die from them (5). Some types of hepatitis are going to pass without causing permanent damage to the liver (8). The term Hepatitis from Greek "hepar" meaning "liver", and the suffix "ittis" meaning "inflammation" (6).

Even though the liver has the ability to react to damage and can repair itself, repetitive insults can produce liver failure or deadly diseases, infections, and disorders. A few such diseases are viral hepatitis, yellow fever, and rubella. Some of the disease caused by bacteria are amebic dysentery, leptospirosis, and streptococcal infections. These diseases can fatally damage the liver.