Heart disease
Heart disease is a group of conditions that affect the heart, including coronary heart disease, where narrowed arteries can reduce blood flow to the heart muscle.
What heart disease means
Heart disease is not one single condition. The term can include coronary heart disease, heart rhythm problems, heart failure, valve disease, congenital heart defects, and other disorders. In everyday public-health use, it often refers especially to coronary heart disease, where the heart's own blood supply becomes limited.
Coronary arteries and plaque
The coronary arteries wrap around the heart and deliver oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle. In coronary heart disease, fatty deposits called plaque can build inside artery walls. Plaque may narrow the channel for blood flow, stiffen arteries, or rupture and trigger a clot that suddenly blocks blood.
Symptoms
Heart disease symptoms depend on the condition and the person. Coronary heart disease may cause chest pain or pressure, shortness of breath, fatigue, nausea, lightheadedness, pain in the arm, shoulder, neck, jaw, back, or upper stomach, or no obvious symptoms until a serious event. Symptoms can be different or less typical in women, older adults, and people with diabetes.
Heart attack
A heart attack happens when blood flow to part of the heart muscle is severely reduced or blocked, usually by a clot. Heart muscle can be injured quickly, so possible heart attack symptoms need emergency care. Calling emergency services is safer than trying to drive, wait, or judge whether the symptoms are serious enough.
Diagnosis
Clinicians may use a medical history, physical exam, blood pressure measurement, cholesterol and diabetes tests, electrocardiogram, stress testing, imaging, coronary calcium scoring, CT angiography, or cardiac catheterization. The right tests depend on symptoms, urgency, age, risk factors, and whether the goal is prevention or emergency care.
Treatment
Treatment can include lifestyle changes, medicines, procedures, and rehabilitation. Medicines may manage cholesterol, blood pressure, clotting risk, chest pain, heart rhythm, or diabetes. Some people need procedures such as angioplasty with stenting or coronary artery bypass surgery. Cardiac rehabilitation can support recovery and long-term behavior change after some heart events.
Prevention
Prevention focuses on lowering overall cardiovascular risk. That can mean not smoking, controlling blood pressure, treating high cholesterol, managing diabetes, being physically active, eating heart-supportive food patterns, limiting alcohol, sleeping well, and taking prescribed medicines consistently. Population-level prevention also depends on access to care, healthy foods, clean air, and safe places to move.
Why it matters
Heart disease matters because it can be sudden, disabling, and partly preventable. It also connects several quiet risks: cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, tobacco exposure, air pollution, stress, and unequal access to care. Understanding the mechanisms helps turn a frightening label into specific risks that can be measured, discussed, and often reduced.