How Antioxidants Protects -

About Angina

Angina pectoris is not, as is commonly thought, a disease, but a symptom. It is the often agonizing tight gripping, constricting pain, 'like a steel band around the chest', that is felt by the sufferer after a certain, often predictable, amount of exercise. Angina usually comes on after walking for a particular distance comes on more quickly on a cold day or when walking against the wind, and especially when walking uphill. It may be brought on by anxiety or emotion. Sometimes the pain passes down the arms, especially the left arm. Sometimes it radiates through to the back or up into the neck. Altogether it is a very unpleasant and worrying experience.

Angina is worrying because the trouble comes from the heart and is caused by asking the heart to work harder than it comfortably can with the limited oxygen and glucose supply available to it. This supply is limited because the arteries that carry the blood to the heart muscle the coronary arteries have been narrowed by atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is the disease angina is the symptom. In the case of most affected people usually men the heart can beat away satisfactorily when the person is at rest. But during exertion, the heart has to work harder to pump additional blood to the muscles and there comes a point at which the narrowed coronary arteries cannot supply the needed increase in blood flow. When this happens, the heart complains. Waste materials accumulate around the heart muscle cells and these stimulate pain in the nerve endings. Many people with angina go on like this for years, but in some the condition gradually worsens until it may occur even at rest. In others, the angina becomes more rapidly unstable and there is a serious risk that a coronary artery, or a large branch of it, may become completely blocked, causing coronary thrombosis a heart attack.