What's The Link Between High Cholesterol, Chest Pain, And Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)?

Cholesterol can have both positive and negative effects on the body. It’s normally responsible with making sure that cells stay healthy, while also helping the body produce hormones. The human liver is responsible for cholesterol production, and it makes just the right amount for everything to function properly.

The connection between cholesterol, heart disease, and chest pain

High cholesterol is the culprit that triggers it all. Coronary heart disease is also known as coronary artery disease, and it’s caused by deposits that contain cholesterol and stick to the walls of your arteries. These deposits are also known as plaques, and they basically narrow the arteries, thus limiting your blood flow.

When blood is no longer able to circulate freely inside the arteries, it can cause chest pain (which is known as “angina”), but also a series of other symptoms, such as shortness of breath.

Basically, the relationship between the three is as follows:

• High cholesterol forms plaque.
• Plaque leads to coronary heart disease.
• Coronary heart disease is expressed through chest pain as one of the major symptoms.

High cholesterol is the cause, coronary heart disease is the condition, and chest pain in the symptom.

Coronary heart disease and chest pain

This chest pain doesn’t usually last long, but that doesn’t make it less life-threatening.

There are generally two main types of angina:

• Stable angina is triggered by a stressful moment, and can last a few minutes before it does away. The feeling is often described as similar to a heart attack. While the two may be different, angina could be a sign of a future heart attack.
• Unstable angina is characterized by repeated and longer-lasting episodes of pain. It can occur when a person isn’t active, but it is still to be considered a sign of a potential heart attack, and treated with the same urgency.

There is also a rarer category of chest pain, which is known as variant angina (or Prinzmetal's angina). When it does occur, it’s usually when a person is sleeping. The pain is very intense, and it’s caused by a sudden tightening of the arteries.

Complications of coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease is a very serious health condition, and requires immediate treatment. Otherwise, it can lead to a number of problems, such as:

• Arrhythmia (which is also known as “abnormal heart rhythm”), which is caused by the heart not receiving the required amount of blood it needs to stay healthy. It can also be caused by heart tissue damage, which causes interference with the heart’s electrical impulse, thus leading to abnormal heart beats.
• Heart attacks are one of the major threats of people who have coronary heart disease. Heart attacks are usually a consequence of plaque rupture, which lead to blood clot formation. This causes blood flow interruption to the heart, which damaged its muscle.
• This happens because certain parts of the heart do not receive enough nutrients and oxygen, which is typically a consequence of reduced blood flow (which is, in turn, caused by the aforementioned plaques resulted after cholesterol build-up). Heart failure can also be caused by heart attacks, as these weaken the heart and prevent it from having the strength to pump blood normally.
• Chest pains are also caused by coronary heart disease. Depending on the type of chest pains you have, these can appear both when you are resting, and when you are too stressed or physically active.

Diagnosis of coronary heart disease

In order to determine whether a person has coronary heart disease or some other medical condition, doctors have a series of tests they normally perform, including:

• ECG test, which is an electrocardiogram that monitors the electrical signals of your heart, giving doctors information about any heart attacks you might have suffered in the past, but can also identify a current heart attack threat.
• Holter monitoring is a type of ECG test that requires a patient to stay connected to a portable monitor for a full 24 hours. While the monitor does not interfere with one’s daily activities, it can reveal important information about how blood flows to the heart.
• Echocardiogram uses sound waves to render images of a person’s heart. With this test, doctors can assess if every part of your heart is contributing normally to the blood-pumping process. If the doctor notices that some parts are not receiving enough oxygen or are functioning at a slower pace, they may conclude that the patient has coronary heart disease.
• Stress tests are also common, and particularly helpful when patients show signs of chest pains during physical activity. A stress test requires the patient to perform some physical activities (such as walking on a treadmill), while the doctor keeps them monitored. Some stress tests imply using an echocardiogram’s technology. Others are performed after the patient takes stimulants as an alternative to the actual exercising.
• A heart scan can also reveal coronary heart disease, particularly by studying if there are any calcium deposits inside the arteries.
• An angiogram is another common test which implies injecting your coronary arteries with a dye. During an X-ray, the dye will reveal the spots where arteries are blocked, making it easier for the doctor to know where intervention is required.

Conclusion

Coronary heart disease is just one of the complicated problems that may arise when a person doesn’t keep their cholesterol levels under control. Chest pain is one of the most common symptoms of coronary heart disease, accompanied by shortness of breath.