Written by Medibank
January 2024
What is heart disease?
Cardiovascular disease, which is often called heart disease, is a broad term for a number of different diseases that affect either the heart itself or the blood vessels that allow the blood to circulate.
What are the most common heart diseases?
The most common heart, or cardiovascular diseases include:
- coronary heart disease
- heart failure
- stroke.
These are also the most serious types of cardiovascular disease. Let’s look at each one in more detail.
Coronary heart disease
This is when fatty material, called plaque, gradually builds up in the walls of the heart’s arteries. These are the all-important blood vessels that supply the heart with blood. Eventually, this build-up reduces blood flow.
Coronary heart disease, or CHD, can lead to angina, where a temporary reduction in blood flow to the heart causes discomfort or pain that can either be mild or severe and that may come and go depending on what you’re doing. It may feel like a pressure or squeezing in your chest, and is often confused with indigestion.
CHD can also cause a heart attack, the symptoms of which can differ between men and women.
What causes coronary heart disease?
There’s no single cause of CHD and a variety of things have been identified as risk factors. These include some things that you can’t change, such as your age and if you have a family history of CHD, and some things that you can modify, such as whether you smoke, exercise regularly and maintain a healthy weight.
When you have certain health conditions, the risk of developing CHD also increases. Some of these conditions, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, depression and diabetes, have factors that can be modified to reduce the risk.
Heart failure
This is when the heart muscle becomes damaged and can no longer pump properly. The heart can become bigger or weaker, which can lead to symptoms such as feeling tired or short of breath and difficulty being physically active.
Causes of heart failure include having a heart attack, heart valve problems, and high blood pressure.
Stroke
A stroke happens when blood can’t get to the brain. The most common type of stroke is also related to the build-up of the plaque, technically called atherosclerosis, that’s linked to CHD.
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What are the symptoms of heart disease?
Some of the most well-known symptoms of heart disease include chest pain, feeling short of breath or having difficulty breathing, and heart palpitations. Lesser-known symptoms include swollen feet and ankles, dizziness, poor sleep and leg pains or cramps.
In fact, while chest pain is considered the most common heart attack symptom, not everyone who has a heart attack experiences that. Heart attack can cause many other symptoms, including shortness of breath, nausea, dizziness and sweating.
Symptoms of stroke include facial weakness, arm weakness and speech difficulties.
Heart attack and stroke are both considered medical emergencies, but you should also see your GP if you notice any new or unusual symptoms.
How to look after your heart health
In Australia, 8 out of 10 cardiovascular disease-related events are preventable.1 One reason for this is because many of the risk factors for heart disease are modifiable. This means there are many things you can do to help keep your heart healthy.
In addition to any heart-healthy lifestyle habits you make or maintain, having a Heart Health Check at least once every 2 years is recommended to anyone aged 45 years and over, or 30 years and over for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
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Read more about managing a heart condition
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Things you need to know
* Heart Foundation; Key Statistics: Cardiovascular Disease; retrieved June 2023
2 The Medical Journal of Australia; Cardiovascular disease risk screening in Australia: evidence and data gaps; retrieved July 2023
While we hope you find this information helpful, please note that it is general in nature. It is not health advice, and is not tailored to meet your individual health needs. You should always consult a trusted health professional before making decisions about your health care. While we have prepared the information carefully, we can’t guarantee that it is accurate, complete or up-to-date. And while we may mention goods or services provided by others, we aren’t specifically endorsing them and can’t accept responsibility for them. For these reasons we are unable to accept responsibility for any loss that may be sustained from acting on this information (subject to applicable consumer guarantees).