Heart disease includes a range of medical conditions affecting your heart. Under the heart disease umbrella are included blood vessel diseases, such as congenital heart defects, heart rhythm problems, and coronary artery disease, among others. Heart disease is also called “cardiovascular disease.”

Causes

Your heart is a muscular organ that works like a pump. It is divided into the right and the left side in order to prevent oxygen poor blood to mix with oxygen rich blood. Various types of heart disease are having their particular causes.

The causes of heart disease vary by type of heart disease. For instance, damage to your blood vessels or heart could be caused by a buildup of fatty plaques in your arteries called atherosclerosis. Plaque buildup stiffens and thickens artery walls, inhibiting blood flow through to your tissues and organs.

Atherosclerosis can be caused by being overweight, lack of exercise, having an unhealthy diet, and smoking.

Symptoms

Each type of heart disease has its own particular symptoms:

Symptoms of atherosclerotic disease

Symptoms of cardiovascular disease may be different for women and men. For example, women are more likely to feel nausea, shortness of breath and extreme fatigue along with chest discomfort, while men are more likely to just have chest pain.

Symptoms of atherosclerotic disease can include:

Shortness of breath

Chest discomfort, chest pressure, chest tightness, and chest pain

Coldness or weakness in your arms or legs, numbness, pain, and numbness

Pain in the back, upper abdomen, throat, jaw or neck

Until you have heart failure, stroke, angina, or a heart attack, you might not be diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.

Heart arrhythmias symptoms

Abnormal heartbeat is called heart arrhythmia. The heart may beat irregularly, too slow or too quickly. Among the symptoms of heart arrhythmia are included:

Bradycardya or slow heartbeat

Tachycardia or racing heartbeat

Fluttering in your chest

Shortness of breath

Discomfort or chest pain

Dizziness

Lightheadedness

Fainting or near fainting

Symptoms of heart disease caused by heart defects

Congenital heart defect symptoms can include:

Swelling in abdomen, legs or areas around the eyes

Blue or pale gray skin color

Shortness of breath in infants during feedings, poor weight gain

Weak heart muscle symptoms

Cardiomyopathy symptoms may include:

Fatigue

Breathlessness at rest or with exertion

Irregular heartbeats that feel fluttering, pounding or rapid

Swelling of the feet, ankles, and legs

Fainting, lightheadedness and dizziness

Heart infection symptoms

Symptoms of heart infection can include:

Fatigue or weakness

Shortness of breath

Fever

Changes in your heart rhythm

Swelling in your abdomen or legs

Unusual spots or skin rashes

Persistent or dry cough

Valvular heart disease symptoms

Symptoms of valvular heart disease may include:

Fainting

Shortness of breath

Fatigue

Chest pain

Swollen ankles or feet

Irregular heartbeat

Stem cell therapy

Stem cells give great hopes for developing new treatments because of their remarkable potential to develop in the body into various cell types. They serve in many tissues as an internal repair system, replenishing other cells. Stem cell therapy is the newest approach in treating heart disease. Stem cell therapy is using two main types of cells. The skeletal myoblasts are present in skeletal muscle. The can be harvested and implanted for the purpose of muscle substitution after two or three weeks of culture in a scar area in the heart. Other stem cells that can be used for treating heart disease are derived from the bone marrow.

In the medical world there is currently a lot of effort being made in order to understand all the effects of these different cell types, as well as their potential mechanisms of action. Angiogenesis is one of the proposed mechanisms of cellular therapy. This idea consists in the fact that bone marrow cells can secrete multiple potentially angiogenic substances. They can also transdifferentiate into cells that help create new blood vessels. Myogenesis is another proposed mechanism that is still more controversial. This consists in transdifferentiation of cells derived from the bone marrow into heart muscle cells.

Aside from the bone marrow, stem cells could be obtained in diverse locations. Stem cells can be found in the periphery. We can extract stem cells, for instance, from fat tissue. In the medical community there is still a lot of ongoing investigation on which exactly cells work best, how to use them and where to get these cells.

Cells for heart disease therapy can be selected following different approaches. All mononuclear cells can be used for bone marrow cell transplantation, or endothelial precursor cells could be selected, or stromal cells could be used. Autologous cells are usually extracted from the adult bone marrow. This could also being done allogenically. However, there are still to be resolved the immunogenicity issues.

The stem cell programs functional today in various medical institutions are focused primarily on treating heart failure related to a chronic disease state or a recent myocardial infarction. A number of large animal studies have been performed with allogenic mesenchymal cells, in both chronic and acute models. These studies have explored diverse delivery modes. There have been also some studies focusing on bone marrow mononuclear cells in a chronic model of heart failure.

Autologous bone marrow cells can be delivered with a catheter or injected surgically in clinical applications. This stem cell therapeutic approach can be used after myocardial infarction in the acute setting or in the chronic setting of refractory angina or heart failure. After myocardial infarction, in the acute setting, autologous bone marrow can be also infused down the coronary arteries. Substances like G-CSF can stimulate the body to release precursor cells from the bone marrow. These cells can then be allowed to migrate to an infarction area or collected for infusion.

A few studies cover chronic ischemic heart disease, examining autologous bone marrow cell. In Europe has been primarily pursued stem cells intracoronary injection. Different groups are exploring ways to transplant stem cells into the damaged heart. Among the new approaches to deliver cells to the heart is included tissue engineering. For instance, to the damaged area of the hear can be applied patches of cardiomyocytes and/or pacemaker cells with the hope that they will begin repairing and/or replacing damaged heart cells. New cardiomyocytes can be also be generated by stimulating resident heart cells. Some of these approaches are already being tested around the world in clinical trials, while others are still being evaluated in the lab.