Health Care

Heart disease is one of the deadliest killers in the world to date. Congestive heart failure, a condition found secondary to innumerable major cardiac diseases, possesses its own high mortality rate. Fifty percent of patients who are diagnosed with congestive heart failure will die within the five following years. Scientists and researchers have always had problems understanding the exact mechanisms of the disease, and to find a cure.

Congestive heart failure begins as the cells in the heart die or stop working attributable to an event like a myocardial infarction (a heart attack) or ischemic heart disease. Whatever the cause, the heart is subsequently ineffective pumping blood throughout the body, resulting in the blood pooling in the organs and fluid building up in and around the lungs as sodium is unable to be adequately excreted, causing dyspnea that is the classic symptom of congestive heart failure.

Clinical research is being targeted at the treatment of the disease and the possibility of repairing the damaged cells in the heart. Current research is underway to measure new medications that would lend a hand in vasodilation, also as a calcium inhibitor that would not producethe higher incidence of cardiac arrhythmia seen with the medications currently on the market.

In the age of natural medicine, the power of the mind has been invoked in clinical trials to apply meditation and relaxation techniques to battle the tension on the heart that can be the breaking point for patients with congestive heart failure. Tension has been shown to negatively affect the body's blood pressure forcing the heart to work harder and placing an undue amount of stress on a by this time feeble muscle.

The theory lies in the belief that by learning to maintain a low level of mental stress the heart will be less stressed and as a result less likely to fail completely, and the patient can be accorded a better prognosis.

Alongside the return to natural, holistic methods of treatment is an incredible advancement in clinical technology that was not available twenty or thirty years in the past. Scientists profess to have identified a set of altered genes that can cause a person to be more disposed to suffer from congestive heart failure and are using their current expertise of genes and the benefits of gene therapy in an effort to reverse the effect. In addition, medications to tamp down on the genes' actions, like beta blockers and alpha-2 agonists are by this time available and being used in treatment programs.

Also being explored is the possibility of using stem cells to aid in correction of the damaged heart tissue. Clinical trials showed that patients in distress from congestive heart failure responded very favorably to an injection of their own stem cells into the heart, and while the exact means by which this causes improvement is as yet unknown. It is suspected that these cells either facilitate the growth of new vessels in the heart or act as a type of beacon, attracting the body's own healing cells to the site of the harm and stimulating repair.

The possibility of growing healthy tissue from embryonic stem cells to be transplanted is also being explored, although the controversial nature of the employment of embryonic stem cells due to the compulsory destruction of the embryo makes this doubtful in the foreseeable future. Scientists have determined that adult stem cells just can't provide an adequate supply of new cells to meet the needs of patients who have suffered from congestive heart failure.

Congestive heart failure is incredibly dangerous insofar as the body cannot reproduce the dead tissue cells in the heart; all the same, with modern advancements it is the longing of researchers everywhere to one day find a cure.

Author: Darrell Miller

D-Ribose is a simple five-carbon sugar that has been shown to delay the progression of congestive heart failure in many people who have had a heart attack at some point in the past. Congestive heart failure is a condition that can occur as a result of any structural or functional cardiac disorder which impairs the ability of the heart to fill with and pump a sufficient amount of blood throughout the body. Since not all patients experience volume overload at the initial evaluation, this disease is most commonly referred to as heart failure, rather than congestive heart failure. This disease is often under-diagnosed because of a universally agreed upon definition does not exist and there are difficulties with diagnosis, especially in those with a mild condition. Even with the best care and therapy, heart failure has an associated mortality rate of ten percent and is the leading cause of hospitalization in people above the age of sixty-five.

Many studies have been done and presented at the Second Annual Academic Surgical Congress, which is sponsored by the Association for Academic Surgery and Society of University Surgeons. Heart attacks often lead to the progressive onset of congestive heart failure. After a heart attack, the portion of the heart that hasn't been damaged must work harder to compensate for the functional loss of the tissue that is damaged. The heart will eventually begin to fail, causing the chambers of the heart to enlarge and waken, which in turn causes the heart to lose its ability to pump blood effectively.

A study, which was conducted by the University of Minnesota, led by Dr. John Foker and his team, determined that administering D-Ribose will significantly improve heart function after a heart attack. The study also showed that the progression of heart failure after a heart attack begins with the fall of energy levels. D-Ribose is very unique, it serves as a foundation for many important compounds such as DNA, RNA, and ATP (the energy of cells). ATP is very important to health and for maintaining normal energy-dependent body functions. Hearts that are stressed, muscles, and other tissue lack the metabolic machinery that is needed to quickly make D-Ribose and overcome progressive energy depletion. D-Ribose has been shown to significantly increase energy formation in those tissues that are stressed. The energy level of the heart tissue that is not damaged by the heart attack is in control of the beginning events of heart failure. When ATP starts to decrease, function will worsen, which sets the progression of chronic cardiac failure in motion. Supplementing with D-Ribose is known to increase energy in stressed hearts, which slows the progression of heart failure and in some cases even prevents it altogether. Although the study is in its early stages of investigation, Dr. Foker is positive about the results. By treating hearts with D-Ribose, ATP concentration of the heart can be improved and loss of energy can be prevented, which is known to be the major contributor to this disease's progression.

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/
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