About Molina

Kinds of CVD

kindcvd

Diseases of the heart can include coronary artery disease (CAD) and heart failure. CAD is a disease of the arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood. Your heart pumps blood all over your body but it needs blood too. The coronary arteries feed the heart with blood. These vessels can get clogged with plaque. CAD can cause chest pain and heart attacks.

Heart failure is also called congestive heart failure. It means that your heart doesn't pump enough blood to your organs and tissues. You might hear it in terms of "right-sided heart failure" and "left-sided heart failure". If the right side of the heart doesn't pump hard enough, the blood backs up. This can cause swelling in the legs. If the left side of the heart doesn't pump hard enough, the blood backs up into the lungs. This can cause shortness of breath.

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, means that the blood pushing on your blood vessel walls is too strong. This makes your heart work hard to pump blood to the rest of your body. Over time, high blood pressure can cause problems. It can lead to heart failure, heart attack or stroke. High blood pressure is the most common form of CVD in the United States.