What is coronary heart disease?
Coronary heart disease results from plaque build up in the heart arteries. In this video, Dr Ravi Assomull explains how stable disease differs from a heart attack.
Learn more about Heart disease or book a consultation with Dr Assomull – no GP referral needed, appointments typically within one working day.
Transcript
Coronary heart disease refers to the gradual accumulation of fatty deposits in the blood vessel supplying your heart. We refer to these as coronary arteries. Coronary heart disease can be stable and progressive over time where typically the plaque gradually increases in terms of its size and causes a progressive narrowing in the coronary arteries.
A more worrying form of coronary heart disease is an acute myocardial infarction where a tiny looking plaque suddenly ruptures are typically a plaque that causes maybe a 30-40% narrowing suddenly ruptures causing the aggregation of clotting products and a complete blockage of the heart artery. This results in the symptoms of a heart attack which are classically crushing central chest pain with radiation to your arm or jaw associated with other symptoms such as nausea and sweating.
