![]() Carrying around less weight will take some pressure off your heart. If you’re obese or overweight, lose some weight. ![]() Cigarette smoking is just plain bad for heart health. It’s helpful for evaluating structural problems in the heart and finding severe blockages in arteries. An MRI uses magnets to create an image of soft tissue in the body. Also called an angiogram or arteriography, this test uses X-rays to map blood flow and blockages in the coronary arteries. This test uses sound waves to make an image of the heart’s size and shape and show how it’s pumping. Also called a thallium test, this procedure uses a tiny amount of injectable radioactive material to trace how your heart is working. Also called a treadmill test or an exercise test, this test assesses electrical activity in the heart when placed under stress, such as while walking on a treadmill. This test creates a graph of electrical activity in the heart that tells your doctor a lot about how your heart is functioning. X-ray imaging can be very helpful in visualizing whether the heart is the right size and if not, which areas seem to be most enlarged. Your doctor will likely draw blood to check cholesterol levels and look for other markers of inflammation, disease or heart issues. Chronic disruption of sleep which may be caused by a common condition called obstructive sleep apnea, in which the patient wakes up multiple times during the night because he or she stops breathing momentarily, can also trigger the heart to enlarge. The thyroid makes hormones that regulate many aspects of how the body works, and if your thyroid is making too much or not enough of a certain hormone, that can have repercussions for how well your heart works. This can lead to a weakening of the heart over time. Therefore, the hearts of people with obesity may be working harder than is optimal. The bigger your body becomes, the harder your heart has to work to supply oxygenated blood to that additional flesh. As your heart tries to compensate for the changes in blood flow associated with these rhythms, it may end up dilating or expanding. The heart is controlled by electrical signaling to beat in a certain way, but these signals can become disrupted by disease or damage, and that can result in abnormal heart rhythms. But as you age, these faults could become more apparent and result in a heart that’s weaker, enlarged and/or unable to move enough blood for your body’s needs. In some cases, these defects are minor problems that may not show symptoms when you’re very young. ![]() Many people are born with structural malformations or deformities of the heart. Structural problems, such as a leaky heart valve.It can also contribute to the development of cardiomegaly – the heart increases in size to compensate for the arterial blockages. In some people, this leads to heart attacks. Arteries that have been narrowed or blocked with cholesterol can force your blood pressure to increase and put much more strain on the heart as it tries to force the same amount of blood through a narrower tube. High blood pressure, also called hypertension, forces your heart to work much harder than it should to move blood appropriately, which can lead to a thickening of the heart muscle. High blood pressure is often called the “silent killer” because it is the source of so many health problems and may not offer many signs of its presence. Heart attacks can damage and weaken the heart, as can many other conditions. It can get weaker and burn out.” This is the opposite of what tends to happen with skeletal muscles, such as those in the arms and legs, where an increased workload tends to lead to a stronger muscle over time. “The larger the heart muscle gets, the less efficient it becomes. Brendan James Carry, a cardiologist with Geisinger in Danville, Pennsylvania says that a weak heart is often a bigger-than-normal heart – as the muscle works harder to overcome whatever obstacle is preventing it from pumping appropriately, the muscle grows or thickens, resulting in cardiomegaly. Many conditions and problems can cause the heart to weaken and enlarge.
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