Purpose and Process: this was a big portion of our project. We had to have a minimum of four pages to show to Mr. Leader to prove we knew almost everything about our disease. Within this document, there was information on the cures and tests being done know, to how the organs play the part in heart failure. I feel like I succeeded because mine was double the minimum requirement and I learned a majority of everything that happens with heart failure from that one assignment.
If you would like to take the time, I highly suggest and recommend you read the document below to learn more about heart disease!
Cardiovascular (CVD) - Organs
Daniel Cohen
Leader
10/19/13
Organ biology is the study of organs. Organs are a group of tissues in a living organism that have adapted to perform a specific function that benefits the organism. In animals, organs are grouped together to make organ systems which have a specific function. For example, the esophagus, liver and the stomach are all organs that are parts of the Digestive system. This is a well known system, however most people just think of the stomach and intestines as the digestive system. Then as you get to more advanced animals/organisms, like humans, you find that that are more organ systems and functions.They usually have 10 or more systems inside the complex organism like the integumentary, skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine (hormonal), digestive, respiratory, circulatory, excretory, and reproductive systems. Inside the integumentary system the organs are hair, skin nails and exocrine glands. In skeletal the organs are bones and joints. Each bone is actually a very complex organ. In the nervous system the organs are the brain, the spinal cord and sensory organs along with the nerves that connect these with the rest of the human body. In the endocrine system there is all of the glands of the body like the pituitary gland and Pineal gland. The hypothalamus is also part of the system and is in the brain. It also deals with a lot of the hormones that are released throughout the entire body which pays a specific purpose to keeping all of the other glands and systems working. For example the pancreas is a very important organ in this system. It produces two of the most important hormones in humans which are insulin and glucagon. Insulin and glucagon make sure that the glucose, or sugar levels, are at a maintained point and make sure that it doesn’t drop or rise. If you do not get enough insulin that is a deficiency and leads to diabetes. In the respiratory system there is the airway, lungs and muscles of respiration. In the airway there is the lungs, mouth, pharynx, larynx, bronchi and bronchioles. This is so important because every cell in the body requires a constant flow of oxygen to stay alive. It also removes carbon dioxide. In the excretory system Kidneys, livers, and urinary bladder are main organs. The kidney is place to rid of waste and about one third of all the blood that is pumped through the heart goes through the kidney first and is filtered. The liver is so vital for the body and it is the second biggest organ in the body besides skin. It has many functions that benefit digestion, immunity, metabolism and it is vital to store nutrients in the body. Urinary bladders are used to store urine. Finally the reproductive system has a couple main organs. For males there is the penis, scrotum and testicles. The penis is used during intercourse to disperse the semen which contains sperm. The sperm then travels and pairs with a woman’s egg and creates life. The scrotum holds the testicles and the testicles hold the semen. This process of all of the organs are studied in many different ways. Labs all over the world study the organs to find specific functions and what diseases can occur. They study this so they can find how to prevent this disease. John Hopkins Medical program is a great example of how it is studied. There are so many factors that go into it. They estimate that about 1,400,00 people die every year from cardiovascular disease. That estimates to about 2,400 people every single day just in America. They look at both primary and secondary prevention strategies in high risk population. So people who have premature coronary disease, hypertension, obesity and people who live in an urban community population have a higher risk. They try to find why that is and what goes on in the body to try to prevent cardiovascular. They even try lifestyle interventions to see if that would make a difference. They also study the responsiveness to preventive pharmacotherapy. They try to change the medical environment, and different care systems in the community as a whole to see if that affects anything in anyway.
Innerbody.com (n.d.). Endocrine System: Discover the Anatomy and Function of Glands. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://www.innerbody.com/image/endoov.html#full-description
Encyclopedia Britannica (n.d.). organ (biology) -- Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/431855/organ
John Hopkins Medicine (n.d.). Cardiovascular Disease Research. Retrieved October
There are many things that go wrong in the human body when cardiovascular disease comes into play. Many of the problems relate to a process called atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is formed when something called plaque builds up in the walls of the arteries and then this narrows the arteries which makes it extremely hard for the blood to flow. It is just like mucus in your throat. It builds up until a point where you are or feel sick and it gets harder to breathe because your airway is restricted. If it builds up too much and there is no flow it can cause something called a blood clot. A blood clot is extremely serious and dangerous. It can cause a heart attack or a stroke. If there is loss of blood flow completely, one specific part of the heart muscle that requires the artery will start to die. An Ischemic stroke is something different however this is the most common form of cardiovascular disease. This is also caused because of a blood clot, but this has a more damaging and long term effect. The blood vessels that feed the brain are not being transferred to the brain and when that is shut off or blocked, then the brain cells being to die and that is when you can have permanent damage. The brain may not have the ability to perform functions like it did before such as walking and talking. That is why when some people have a stroke, they cannot form words like they could before. A very good example is Ozzy Osbourne. He could not speak clearly after he had a stroke and that is because the brain cells died off and could not perform that task as well as it could before. A hemorrhagic stroke takes place when there is a blood vessel that bursts and explodes in the brain and this is usually caused by uncontrolled hypertension. Heart failure is another big thing that happens to people with cardiovascular disease. This does not mean that the heart stops pumping altogether. All this means is that the blood is not flowing well enough and the oxygen and blood levels are not being met by the bodies requirements. It is putting in more work but getting less results and using more energy. There is something that is called arrhythmia. This means that the heart is beating and pumping blood abnormally. It has an odd beat. There are different types of arrhythmias. The heart can either beat to fast, too slow or irregularly, which means it beats fast at a point, slows down, stops beating then starts again. When the heart is beating too slow. less than 60 beats per minute to be exact, then it is called Bradycardia. When the heart beat is over 100 times per minute this is called Tachycardia. All of this can affect how the heart works because the heart may not be able to pump all the blood that you body needs because it may be going to slow or too fast and will burn too much energy in one place. Then there is the heart valve problems. When the heart valves do not open enough to allow the blood flow to move through efficiently, it is called stenosis. When the valves do not close properly and let the blood leak out that is called regurgitation. When the valves leaflets bulge or prolapse back into the upper chamber that is call mitral valve prolapse. When that happens the valves may not close properly, which allows blood to flow backwards through them.
American Heart Association (2013, August 30). What is Cardiovascular Disease
Leg veins will also be affected by cardiovascular disease. The veins carry the blood from the arms to your legs and make its way back around to the heart. If the veins in you legs are weak or blocked the blood may start to build up in your legs and create a blood clot and varicose veins. Blood clots can be extremely dangerous if they break loose and travel to the lung. It can block the lung artery, or the Pulmonary embolism. This can be fatal if not treated. It can increase the chance of heart failure and damage your lungs severely.
The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (n.d.). Heart & Vascular Disease -
The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://www.scai.org/SecondsCount/Disease/Default.aspx
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Task Force Report on Research in Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease (2001, October). National Heart, Lung and Blood institute. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from www.nhlbi.nih.gov/resources/docs/cvdrpt.html In a lab they were doing experiments with mice to model the cardiovascular and heart production in the heart. The interactions between the muscle cells and the tissues in the heat and the skeletal muscle are utilizing the mice with mutations and see how it affects these interactions. They are exploring heart development. A scientist, by the name of Roberta Gottlieb, is exploring molecular pathways in ischemic heart disease and is studying programmed cell death pathways that might contribute to heart failure. They utilize the rat or mouse preparations and a novel peptide delivery system to explore cardiac responses to hypoxia and pathways to protect against cell death. There is a lot of clinical research that is being done to find out how to help the heart during procedures such as heart transplants. They have the Transmedic Organ Care System which is used to keep the heart beating while being transplanted and used to keep the hearts preserved better. Marion Hoffman is exploring the basis of atherosclerosis in blood vessels such as the aorta. The studies are showing the inflammatory pathways that drive the arterial disease which may offer new therapeutic targets. So this is saying she found new pathways and may have found new ways to prevent plaque build up and clogged arteries. She may have found a new therapeutic method for CVD. Elizabeth McNally, another scientist, investigates how genetic defects can lead to heart and skeletal muscle weakness to help new pathways for treatments. Mahesh Gupta, is looking into the molecular basis of heart failure. This one goes into molecules. This goes deep into the role of chromatin remodeling enzymes in the gene dysregulation, contractile dysfunction and the death of cells during heart failure. So he is studying what is going on with the death of cells during heart failure. Dorothy Hanck is focusing on cardiac ion channel biophysics and physiology and pharmacology with the goal of identifying heart specific characteristics. They use this so they can direct the design of drugs that can be used to help treat patients and see what is good for them. Finally Jim Holaska is a basic scientist studying muscle disease. He has identified the role of the nucleus in causing some forms of heart and skeletal muscle disease.
Promising Research in Heart Disease - The University of Chicago Medicine. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://www.uchospitals.edu/specialties/heart/research/
Cardiovascular Muscle and Organ Research Overview - Molecular Pathology - UC San Diego. (2008). Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://molpath.ucsd.edu/interests/CardiovascularMuscleandOrgan_research.shtml
There is a new Brazilian study that involves the heart and mononuclear cells called BMMC’s. It involves multiple injections in the heart of a bone marrows mononuclear cells. It was derived from the patient called Refractory Angina Cell Therapy or reACT for short.
Researchers found that doing this procedure, it benefitted al eight of the Refactory angina patients that were a part of the study. All of the patients had previously undergone surgical revascularization. The large piece of monocytes in the formula is related to new blood vessel growth which is amazing. It restores perfusion on the myocardial ischemic areas after the cell transplantation. It basically makes new blood vessels which is something that is hard after ischemic strokes. The symptom relief took about 3 months after the procedure was done and they continued to improve through 12 months and kept the improvement in the past 18 months of the trial. According to another person from the same place, up to 15 % of the patients with coronary artery disease present severe, disabling angina pectoris that cannot be controlled by combinations of current therapies that exist including drug thereapy, coronary bypass surgery or coronary angioplasty. Angina is more of a discomfort and a heart condition that makes the person feel immense pain in their chest. A new inotropic peptide that has important cardiovascular regulatory problems, will contribute to the functional improvement in patients that have severe heart failure after they have gone through the bone marrow mononuclear cell surgery/ transplant. The study was with 40 patients in Beijing. 20 were assigned the standard medication, 20 were assigned to the new transplants and 20 were just assigned for the control group. 21 resulted in overall cardiac improvement. the overall goal was to see how apelin plasma levels changed after the transplant, and to see how the relationship between apelin levels and heart function. They wanted to see and obvious direct relationship. They found that apelin levels did increase in all the who received the transplant of the marrow into their heart and the cardiac function actually improved because of the relief of the dyspnea.