What is congestive heart feilure, what are the symptoms and how can CHF be treated

Symptoms of congesitve heart failur

Comgestive heart failur will cause symptoms like.

- Breathing shortness.

- Heart gallup.

- Rales in the lungs. This symptom is especially prominent if the congestive heart filure result in liquid sieping into the thrakeoles in the lungs through the walls of the blood vessels. so-called lung edema.

- Fatigue by work load.

- Paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea (shortness of breath).

- Low capasity to do physical work, poor condition,

- Pooling of blood in the blood vessels of the body causing dilated vessels, for example of the jugular vein.

- Pooling of blood in the liver.

- Swelling of body parts, especially the lover extremities, or general edema.

- Blueness in the skin.

- By examination the heart will often show itself to be enlarged.


The causes and mechanisms of congestive heart feilure

The immediate cause of congestive heart failure are of four types that often are blended together in each case: The muscle tissue in the heart can be to weak. The heart can be stiffened by disease processes. The body can demand more oxygen than normal. The blood vessels out to the body can be narrowed or stiffened so that normal heart activity is not enough to give the body enough blood.

Disease in the hearts own blood circulation , coronary heart disease, so that the vessels in the heart's own blood supply get narrowed or stiffened is a common cause of congestive heart failur. The coronary disease will make the heart get too little oxygen and nutrients and maqke the heart muscle weak and also make the heart stiff, and then the heart do not manage to pump enough blood out to the body tissues.

Direct destruction of a part of the heart tissue, so-called heart infarction, will cause the heart muscle to be weaker and may cause congestive heart failure, both in the accute face anf later where the sore in the heart has beeen replaced by inactive scar tissue.

Heart infarction is by itself often a consequence of corronary heart disease. The narrowed blood vessels can acutely get clogged by a blood clot so that a piece of tissue looses blood supply. The tissue getting too litttle oxygen from narrowed vessels are also especially susceptible for bad events in the tissue itself so that it gets destroyed. For example can a sudden demand for more oxygen because of increased work load not be satisfied an the tissue gets destroyed. Also an accute infection can easily destroys a piece of tissue weakened by too little blood supply.

In many cases of congestive heart failure there is therefore a combination of too little blood supply to the whole heart and scar tissues in the heart after infarctions that do not do any useful work.

The disease hemocromatosis can cause the heart to stiffen and cause conjestive heart failur. In this disease there is too much iron-containing substances in the body of the type found in the red blood cells and these depsit in body tissues like the heart. Amyloidosis can also cause heart tissue stiffening and thereby congestive heart failur. This is a complication of some cases of rheumatoid arthritis and other rheumatic diseases where protein fragments, so-called amyloid, deposit in body tissues, for example the heart.

Viral infactions destroying heart tissue is anothe cause. Malformation of heart valves can cause insufficient heart capasity. Such malformation can occur because of rheumatic fever or bacterial infections earlier in life. High blood pressure can further influece the hearts ability to do its work.

Imbalances in mineral content or lack of essential nutrients will contribute to heart malfunction by impairing the internal energy supply of the heart. The hormones renine and aldosterone inhibits heart muscle work and make blood vessels constrict, thus both contributing to congestive heart failure and worsening the consequences of congestive heart failur.

The right ventricle (heart chamber) pumps blood through the lungs, and the left one sends the blood out to the body. Failure in the right ventricle will therefore cause edema and other problems in the lungs. Failure in the left ventricle wil cause edema and symptoms from the rest of the body. Often the right ventricle failure with lung edema is a consequence of prior left ventricle failur and body edema.


Treatment for congestive heart failure

Common treatments of congestive heart failure are:

-Dietary salt restriction. Salt causes retention of water in the body and thus edema tendency.

-Diuretic drugs aiming to increase urine production and thus to reduce water retension in the body.

-ACE inhibitors, a group of drugs that inhibits the syntesis of a hormone that make the blood vessels contract. This way the blood pressure drops and the blood flows better.

-Spironolactone, which is an inhibitor of the hormone aldosterone. Aldosterone influences the tissue in the blood vessels and heart in many ways that have the net effect of restricting the blood stream.

-Pacemakers.

Natural drugs against congestive heart failur has the aim of stimulating the heart tissue to regain its strength by cellular reparation, to normalize the water balance by means of minerals and other nutrients, and to stimulate the internal energy supply of the heart.

It will be useful to have a general low consume of fat. However, some types of fat are very bad by high consume and some are good by moderate consume.

You should mostly avoid saturated fat as found in fat milk, red meat and coconut products. A high consume of these fat types promote clogging of blood vessels and this clogging contribute to conjestive heart failur.

You should also avoid all types of chamically altered fat, often found in cookies, margarine and even in some bread, since these are strong promotors of inflammatory conditions in vascular tissue.

It may be useful fo reduce the amount of omega-6-fatty acids one consumes, because this type of fatty acids promote inflammatory conditions in blood vessels, in the heart and other places. Vascular inflammations will contribute to worsen congestive heart disease. Soy oil, corn oil and many other oil types contain this kind of aftty acids. You need however some omega-6-fat.

It can be wise to increase the consume of omega-3-fatty acids, since these kind of fatty acids reduce inflammations in heart tissue and vascular tissue. Especially are the acids eicosapentaenoic acid and docosaheaxaenoic acid valuable. This kind of fatty acids are found in fish and seafood, especially fat fish, fish oil including cod oil, and flax oil.

It can also be usful to have a daily consume of mono-unsaturated fatty acids since also these promopte vascular health. Such fatty acids are found in oilve oil, rape oil, canola oil and almonds.



What is cardiac neurosis or nervous heart

Cardiac neurosis are unpleasant sensations or functional disturbances in the heart that do not originate from disease processes in the heart itself or the circulatory system, but are in some way mediated through the nerves connected to the heart.

Cardiac neurosis is not a serious condition. The symptoms from the condition can make a person worry about his heart condition and this worry can aggravate the symptoms. It the person after a thorrough examination has been informed that he is not seriously ill, the symptoms can often alleviate.

A common symptom is stinging sensations around the heart. A feeling of heaviness in the heart region and the breast when one is tired is another symptom.

Other symptom are irregular hear beats, for example extra beats outside normal rhythm (extracystoli) or gallopping heart.

A common cause of this condition are nervous disturbances involving anxiety and tension. These disturbances will make the nervous system send inapropriate signal sto the heart so that the symptoms occur. Another common cause is over-use of caffeine like strong koffee or nicotine that influence the nerves around the heart.


These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is nutritional in nature and should not be construed as medical advice. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug and cosmetic act.