What happens when you get a heart attack? It could be either a disease of the valves or akin to a short circuit, where there are spikes or less elasticity, calcification or thickening of walls etc. Knowing about heart abnormalities can help you take care of your heart better.

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The Short Circuit That Causes A Heart Attack.

2. Functions of Heart :
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 The human heart is a remarkably efficient durable,
and reliable pump, distributing more than 6,000
liters of blood through the body each day, and
beating 30 to 40 million times a year- providing
tissues with vital nutrients and facilitating waste
excretion.
 Consequently, cardiac dysfunction can have
devastating physiological consequences.
Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of
worldwide mortality, with about 80% of the
burden occurring in developing countries.
 Disruption of any element of heart – myocardium,
valves, conduction system, and coronary
vasculature can adversely affect pumping
efficiency, thus leading to morbidity and mortality.
The major categories of cardiac diseases are :
• Congenital heart abnormalities
• Ischemic heart disease
• Hypertensive heart disease
• Diseases of cardiac valves
• Primary myocardial disorders

3. Cardiac structure
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 Heart weight varies with body habitus, averaging
approximately 0.4%-0.5% of the body weight.
1. 250 to 320 gm in females
2. 300 to 360 gm in males
The right ventricle wall thickening is usually 0.3 to 0.5
cm, while the left ventricle wall thickening is 1.3 to 1.5
cm thick.
 Increase in heart weight or ventricular thickness
above these normal limits indicates hypertrophy,
and an enlarged chamber size implies dilation, both
can represent compensatory changes in response to
heart disease and to volume and pressure
overloads.
 Increased cardiac weight and size resulting from
hypertrophy or dilation is called cardiomegaly. You
can consult some of the best cardiologist at Jaslok
Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai.

4. Effect of aging on heart
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 The prevalence of most forms of heart disease
increases with each advancing decade. Epicardial fat
increases, while the detritus of years of intracellular
catabolism and oxidant stress accumulate in the form
of intracellular lipofuscin. Basophilic degeneration, a
grey-blue by product of glycogen metabolism within
cardiac myocytes, is also increased.
 The size of the right ventricular cavity, particularly in
the base to apex dimension, is reduced; this volume
change in exacerbated by systemic hypertension and
bulging of the basal ventricular septum into the left
ventricular outflow tract (termed sigmoid septum).
Valvular aging changes include :
• Calcification of the mitral annulus and aortic valve
• Aortic stenosis
• Valves develop fibrous thickening
• Mitral leaflets tend to buckle back toward the left
atrium during ventricular systole
• Prolapsing (myxomatous) mitral valve
 As this happens, increasing volume and pressure
overloads lead to left atrial dilation, and with it, an
increased incidence of atrial arrhythmias. With time,
small filiform processes form on the closure lines of
aortic and mitral valves, probably resulting from the
organisation of small thrombi.
 The aorta becomes progressively stiffer, owing to the
fragmentation and loss of the elastic tissue and
increased collagen deposition, along with the
accumulation of atherosclerotic plaque.
The result is :
1.Less elasticity
2.Increased pressure spikes with each cardiac
contraction that are transmitted to distal organs.
 Compared with younger myocardium, elderly
myocardium has fewer myocytes, increased
collagenized connective tissue and, often the
deposition of extracellular amyloid.

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