Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and much of the world. Cardiomyopathy is another name used for heart disease which covers a variety of diseases that will affect the heart.

Some of the different diseases associated with the heart are: coronary heart disease, cardiomegaly, cardiovascular disease, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, ischemic heart disease, hypertensive heart failure, inflammatory heart disease, valvular heart disease and of course aortic aneurysm.

Coronary heart disease has to do with the arteries and when they get plaque build up. Chest pain and heart attacks are the result of this coronary heart disease. More than 450,000 people in the United States die of coronary heart disease every year.

Cardiomyopathy means “disease of the heart muscle.” There are two types of cardiomyopathies, intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic means that the pathology is outside of the myocardium. Intrinsic means there is a weakness in the heart that has no external cause. People usually die quickly from this type of heart disease.

Cardiovascular disease affects the arteries and veins attached to the heart. Diabetes and hypertension are two of the contributors of this disease. Atherosclerosis is definitely a type of cardiovascular disease.

Ischemic heart disease is diagnosed when there is limited blood supply to the organs.

Heart failure or congestive heart failure (CHF) or congestive cardiac failure (CCF) is a condition that is recognized when the heart fails to pump enough blood. Sometimes this is more specific when only the right side fails and this is known as cor pulmonale.

Hypertensive heart disease results from high blood pressure

Inflammatory heart disease is what it sounds like, an inflammation of the muscle of the heart and surrounding tissue. Two illnesses resulting from this are endocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart valves and myocarditis which is inflammation of heart muscle.

Valvular heart disease is a disorder that affects the heart valves. Some of the disorders from this type of heart disease are aortic valve stenosis and mitral valve prolapse.

Of course one of the most devastating heart disease problems is the aortic aneurysm. This is when the heart vessels just burst and your survival rate is very small. It is hard to even diagnose this aspect of heart disease. Sometimes an ultrasound can detect an aneurysm, but usually there are no symptoms so people don’t even suspect that they have an aneurysm.

All of this information can be scary, but an informed person is a smart person. So take action to get screenings; or prevent heart disease by not smoking, eating a healthy diet, watching your calories and hoping that your genes are good.