Heart Flashcards
What do coronary vessels do?
Feed the heart by supplying blood to it.
Smoking and the Heart.
CO2 sticks better to hemoglobin than O2 does. The lack of oxygen damages the heart and the vessels.
Problematic foods for the heart
Problematic foods: salt, sugar, fat
Gender heart riskiness
men are 10x likelier than women but it equalizes after menopause.
Beta-blockers and the heart.
Adrenaline antagonists which controls heart rate. An example is propranolol.
What do pacemakers do and where were they discovered?
They fix slow hearts and were made in Ottawa.
Normal blood pressure numbers.
120/80. Systolic (heart when it squeezes) over diastolic (heart at rest). A diastolic pressure above 115 is severe hypertension. Every 5mm increase, has a 25% increased risk.
What are the 2 types of hypertension? Describe them.
Essential: high sodium, irreversible,
Secondary: Controlled by enzyme system and can be treated with drugs. Vasodilators will reduce the blood pressure.
Snake venom method of reducing blood pressure. Which drugs follow this method?
They are angiotensin II inhibitors.
M-Captopril (had copper taste and cough)
Enalapril (cough)
What is congestive heart failure and how can you treat it?
Heart pumps ineficiently. Liquid pools in limbs.
Can be treated with witch’s bells/foxglove. It contains digitalis which causes better pumping, removes liquid from between tissues and is impossible to synthesize.
What is angina and how to treat?
Caused by impaired blood flow to heart (vasoconstriction).
Treated with nitroglycerin which creates nitric oxide (a potent vasodilator)
What is arteriosclerosis?
A plaque (cholesterol) buildup in arteries. The concern is the buildup in the arteriol walls rupturing and causing throbosis (blood clotting) which can then cause a blockage.
Where does our cholesterol come from?
A small portion comes from the cholesterol in our food. Eggs contain the most. This is why companies advertise omega in the eggs (omega is said to steady the heart). NOT ALL OMEGAS ARE THE SAME. The longer chains are better. Some specific ones are Eicosapentaenoic and Docosahexanaeoic.
Most of it comes from saturated fat converted in the liver.
What are lipoproteins made of? What are the kinds of lipoproteins?
Triglyerides, cholesterol ester, free cholesterol, apliprotein, phospholipids.
There are LDLs which transport the cholesterol from the liver to the body.
There are HDLs which transport excess cholesterol from the body back to the liver.
What is the normal blood cholesterol (mmol/L)?
5.2 and 6.2 is high.
What is the normal LDL blood levels (mmol/L)?
3.4 but 4.1 is high
What is the normal HDL blood levels (mmol/L)?
1.56 but 1.0 is bad.
What is the normal LDL/HDL ratio?
3<x<5
What is trans fat and how does it affect the heart?
It is hydrogenated oils. It alters the LDL/HDL ratio by increasing LDLs.
What are statins?
They block the biosynthesis of cholesterol in the liver. They are HMG-COa enzyme inhibitors.
Lovastatin was the first.
Bruce Roth made Lipitor which turned out to be better than Lovastatin.
They lower heart attack risk.
What is Ezetimibe?
It reduces the intestinal absorption of cholesterol
What are fibrates?
Reduces level of VLDL. Can increase HDL levels.
