Medically Reviewed

Heart Disease: Everything You Need to Know

From irregular rhythms to chest pain, the term “heart disease” covers a lot of territory. We’ll walk you through it all.

Updated Jun 11, 2024

By

Matt McMillen

Medical ReviewerSonika Patel, M.D.

Our Experts: Guy Mintz, M.D.; Michael Goyfman M.D., MPH; David Friedman, M.D.

Guy Mintz, M.D.Director of Cardiovascular Health & Lipidology Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital Manhasset, NY

Michael Goyfman M.D., MPHDirector of Clinical Cardiology Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Queens, NY

David Friedman, M.D.Director of Heart Failure Services Northwell Health’s LIJ Valley Stream Long Island, NY

Nearly half of all American adults have some form of cardiovascular disease—an umbrella term that covers everything from high blood pressure to stroke. It’s a serious condition, since heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with one person dying every 33 seconds from a cardiovascular disease. And there’s a lot of information to take in. But the good news is that knowledge is power, and we’re here to share the best treatments, helpful lifestyle changes, and critical information you need to help you not just manage but thrive if you are one of the millions who are living with heart disease.

The term heart disease encompasses a huge amount of cardiovascular territory. That’s because it’s not a single disease but one that refers to all sorts of heart-related health conditions, many of them chronic, that impact how well your heart functions.

Some of the more common forms of heart disease include:

• Atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat)

• Congestive heart failure

• Coronary artery disease (CAD)

• Heart attack

• Heart valve disease

• Hypertension (high blood pressure)

• Stroke

You might have also heard of something called broken heart syndrome, a form of heart disease with origins still unclear to researchers.

Heart disease accounts for more deaths each year than any other health concern. Per the CDC, one in every five deaths each year—nearly 700,000—can be attributed to heart disease. And heart disease does not discriminate: Whether you are a man or a woman of any race or ethnicity, cardiovascular disease is your number-one health threat.

That said, you can do a lot to prevent heart disease in the first place. And, if you already have some form of this condition, there are medications, lifestyle-management tips, and other strategies to help protect you and your heart.

Heart disease has many different symptoms, which can depend on the type of the condition you have. (And in some cases, there are no symptoms at all.) However, there are a few common symptoms that occur in several types of heart disease. We’ll get into the details of the different types of heart disease—including their unique symptoms—below, but here are the warning signs that several of them share, per the Mayo Clinic. If you experience any of the first three, call 911. You may be having a heart attack.

• Chest pain

• Fainting

• Shortness of breath

• Dizziness or lightheadedness

• Swelling, such as in the ankles, legs, and feet

• Irregular heartbeats, including those that make your heart feel like it is pounding, racing, or fluttering

There are many types of heart disease. While some (called congenital heart disease) you may be born with, the majority can develop during your lifetime, especially as you get older. Let’s review some of the major types of heart disease and how to recognize them.

Hypertension

It might seem odd to begin this list with a condition that is not technically a form of heart disease. But having high blood pressure (HBP), a.k.a. hypertension—which has no symptoms—is a precursor to many heart conditions, as it ups your odds of developing numerous other types of heart disease, including coronary artery disease (see below). It often has no known cause, per the Mayo Clinic, but it’s more likely to develop if you have plaque buildups in your arteries that reduce the amount of blood that reaches your heart, leaving you at higher risk for heart attack, heart failure, and stroke. HBP hardens and thickens your arteries, reducing blood flow. If you have a systolic pressure of 130 or higher, or a diastolic pressure of 80 or higher, it’s critical to reduce it.

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)

CAD, the most common type of heart disease, develops when your arteries can’t provide enough oxygen-rich blood to your heart. The heart receives its own supply of blood from the coronary arteries.

Often, CAD is caused by plaque buildups that restrict or block the flow of blood through your blood vessels. CAD often develops over many years, even decades, and it does not always make itself known until it has progressed significantly. At that stage, the affected blood vessel is about 70% blocked. Even people who have plaque blockages in the 40% to 50% range may have no symptoms. Sometimes, you won’t know you have CAD until you have a heart attack. When symptoms do occur, they’re typically:

• Angina, which is pain, discomfort, pressure, or a squeezing sensation in your chest. It can spread out to other parts of your upper body, such as your shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, and back.

• Shortness of breath

A less common, but related, condition called coronary microvascular disease (MVD) or small vessel disease occurs when the walls of the small arteries in the heart are damaged. It is often diagnosed after a doctor finds little or no narrowing in the main arteries of your heart, despite your having symptoms that suggest heart disease, such as angina. MVD is more common in women and in people who have diabetes or HBP. The condition can be difficult to detect. Other symptoms of MVD include pain in your left arm, neck, jaw, abdomen, or back; pronounced fatigue; and shortness of breath.

Heart Attack

A heart attack occurs when the plaque in your blood vessel ruptures, causing a clot to form as the body attempts to repair the damage. This blockage cuts off blood flow to the heart, starving the muscle of needed oxygen and other nutrients.

While chest pain is the most common symptom of heart attack for both men and women, their overall symptoms can be different. For example, women are more likely to have shortness of breath, fatigue, and nausea. Men normally experience the classic symptom of crushing chest pain. Men are also more likely than women to have sudden heart attacks; women, on the other hand, have higher odds of developing symptoms over a period of hours, days, or even weeks.

Common symptoms of heart attack include:

• Abdominal pain

• Angina, a radiating chest pain and pressure that can feel as if an elephant is sitting on your chest

• Cold sweats

• Fatigue

• Heartburn

• Indigestion

• Lightheadedness and dizziness

• Nausea

• Shortness of breath

Congestive Heart Failure

This progressive disease occurs when your heart’s ability to pump blood starts to decline. CAD, heart attack, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure are among the common causes of heart failure. As your heart can no longer pump as well as it used to, the blood that would normally cycle through it can get backed up in other parts of your body. Your kidneys also filter less blood, leading to fluid retention and swelling in your extremities.

Several different symptoms can get worse as heart failure progresses. Some of the most common include:

• Extreme fatigue due to the reduced amount of oxygen-rich blood being delivered to your organs and muscles

• Increased heart rate

• Loss of appetite and nausea because of digestive problems caused by the reduced flow of blood

• Shortness of breath due to an inadequate supply of blood reaching the rest of your body or a buildup of fluid in the lungs, often accompanied by a cough or wheezing

• Swelling in your legs, ankles, and abdomen caused by fluid buildup, accompanied by rapid weight gain.

Heart Valve Disease

As its name implies, heart valve disease involves the system of four valves that helps regulate the flow of blood through the heart. For example, one of your valves might narrow to the point that it reduces the amount of blood that can pass through it. This is called valvular stenosis. Another potential disorder is valvular regurgitation, where the structure of the valve itself becomes damaged and blood goes backwards instead of forward.

When one of your heart’s valves stops working properly, a variety of symptoms, many of them similar to those of heart failure, can occur, including:

• Chest discomfort

• Dizziness and/or fainting

• Fatigue

• Heart palpitations

• Increasing shortness of breath

• Rapid weight gain

• Swelling in your abdomen, ankles, and feet

• Weakness

Arrhythmias

An abnormal heartbeat, called an arrhythmia, can trigger a variety of symptoms, some benign, some dangerous, depending on which kind of arrhythmia you have. Tachycardia, for example, accelerates your heartbeat to a too-fast rhythm, while bradycardia slows it down. Both can sometimes be dangerous and lead to higher risk of stroke and other complications, but not always. If you experience either type of arrhythmia, be sure to consult with your doctor.

Atrial fibrillation (Afib) is the most common type of sustained arrhythmia, with anywhere between 2.7 and 6.1 million Americans currently sharing a diagnosis of it. (As the U.S. population ages, that number is expected to increase to 12.1 million by 2030, reports the CDC.) Afib causes a rapid, erratic heartbeat that can feel like your heart is skipping beats. In some cases, abnormal heartbeats are not a cause of concern. But Afib makes the heart pump blood less efficiently than it should, which can lead to stroke, heart failure, or even cardiac arrest, a quickly fatal event in which the heart stops beating. It’s important to get to the root of Afib, so you know whether or not your symptoms require treatment.

In general, abnormal heartbeats also lead to many symptoms shared by other forms of heart disease, including:

• Chest discomfort

• Dizziness and lightheadedness

• Fatigue

• Shortness of breath

• Weakness

Stroke

A stroke occurs when your brain’s blood supply gets cut off, denying it the oxygen it needs to keep working. This can cause brain tissue to begin to die within a few minutes. Stroke is the fifth-leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for one out of every 20 deaths that occur in this country annually, and it’s a leading cause of serious long-term disability, according to the CDC.

A stroke can greatly damage the brain. You may have trouble understanding what others are saying, you may slur your speech, and you may experience confusion.

Other symptoms include:

• Balance problems that make it difficult to walk

• Dizziness

• Paralysis or numbness, often on only one side of your body, commonly affecting the face, legs, and arms

• Sudden and severe headache, which may be accompanied by vomiting

• Vision problems that may blur or blacken your eyesight in one or both eyes, and/or double vision

If you are experiencing stroke symptoms or recognize them in others, think F.A.S.T.:

• Face drooping

• Arm weakness

• Speech difficulty

• Time to call 911

There are two major types of stroke plus a third, less-severe kind. These include:

Ischemic Stroke

These account for nearly 90% of strokes, per the American Stroke Association. An ischemic stroke can happen when a blood vessel that supplies blood to your brain becomes blocked by a blood clot, or thrombus. This cuts off oxygen to your brain. When these clots develop in a blood vessel that supplies your brain, they result in a thrombotic stroke. The most common cause: A plaque buildup in a blood vessel in the brain ruptures, triggering the formation of a clot. Clots also can form elsewhere in your body, get in your bloodstream, and travel to your brain, where they block blood flow. This is called an embolic stroke. Plaque ruptures can cause this, but usually these clots develop due to atrial fibrillation.

Hemorrhagic Stroke

The most serious type of stroke, a hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel that supplies the brain suddenly bursts. Not only does this cut off much needed oxygen, it also causes pressure to build up in the surrounding brain tissue, leading to harmful swelling and irritation, per the Cleveland Clinic. When the bleeding occurs inside the brain, this is called an intracerebral hemorrhage, which leads to a damaging buildup of pressure inside your brain. Hemorrhagic strokes also can happen in the space between the brain and the arachnoid membrane, a thin layer of tissue that surrounds your brain. This is called a subarachnoid hemorrhage. It can cause dangerous pressure on the outside of your brain.

Transient Ischemic Stroke

Also referred to as a mini-stroke, these occur due to short-lived blockages that briefly cut off blood flow to the brain, per the American Stroke Association. They cause stroke symptoms that typically last less than five minutes, though the symptoms could linger as long as 24 hours. They do not permanently damage the brain. However, like other strokes, they require emergency medical attention, even if your symptoms go away on their own. That’s because they are a warning sign that a full-blown stroke is likely. Prompt medical care can help prevent that.

Let’s go back to the good news: About four out of five cases of heart disease can be prevented. That’s because it’s most often caused by lifestyle factors, such as smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise, and by other health conditions, including diabetes and high blood pressure (HBP), that can arise from these choices. While it’s never too late to make positive, healthy changes, the sooner you begin, the better.

Before getting into the risk factors that you can work to reduce, let’s cover the few that you can’t do anything about.

Age

The older you get, the likelier you are to develop heart disease. In fact, more than 80% people who die from heart disease are older than 65, because the heart tends to grow weaker as you move into your golden years.

Sex

While heart disease may be the number one cause of death for both men and women, it tends to develop later in women. Why? Experts believe that hormones such as estrogen, which women have in much greater abundance than men, may provide some protection against heart disease. However, those hormones decline during menopause. By age 65, a woman’s odds of heart disease match those of a man of similar age.

Genetics and Family History

Heart disease tends to run in the family. Did your dad develop heart disease before the age of 55 or your mom before she turned 65? If so, your own risk is higher than normal because one or both of your parents may have passed along a genetic variation that increases the odds of heart disease.

Early Menopause

According to a study in The Lancet Public Health, going through menopause before age 40 increases the risk of heart diseases like CAD, heart failure, arrhythmia, and heart valve disease among the approximately 10% of women who experience early menopause. It remains unclear why, although a decline in estrogen may be a factor.

These four factors make up only part of the complex swirl of possible causes of heart disease. You can’t change your genes or age, but there’s plenty you can do to address the risks you can change. These include:

High Blood Pressure (HBP)

Having hypertension, a.k.a. high blood pressure, is a red flag for other forms of heart disease. It increases your risk for CAD, heart attack, heart failure, and stroke. HBP doesn’t always have an identifiable cause, but plaque buildups in your arteries, thickening them and reducing blood flow, make HBP more likely.

High Cholesterol

Unhealthy cholesterol levels contribute to blockages in your blood vessels that can eventually lead to heart attack. Your body produces cholesterol naturally—we all need it to make important hormones and absorb vitamin D—but it’s easy to get more than you need by eating foods that are high in saturated and trans fats (like red meat, eggs, and dairy). There are two types of cholesterol: low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad” cholesterol) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good” cholesterol). LDL contributes to plaque buildups in your arteries. HDL protects against heart disease by transporting excess LDL to the liver to be processed as waste.

Obesity

Being obese forces your heart to work harder because your body requires more of the oxygen and nutrients that your blood supplies. This leads to high blood pressure. Excess weight also increases the risks for heart disease, or makes them worse if you already have them, including high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. Obesity has been linked to heart failure and CAD.

Diabetes

Type 1 and type 2 diabetes both limit your body’s ability to maintain a healthy level of glucose, a form of sugar that your body produces and uses for energy. Uncontrolled blood glucose damages your blood vessels and the nerves that control your heart, eventually leading to heart disease. In fact, as many as three out of four people with diabetes die from some form of heart disease.

Physical Inactivity

Getting too little exercise not only directly puts you at higher risk of heart disease, it opens the door to other risk factors like HBP, high cholesterol, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. On the other hand, regular moderate- and vigorous-intensity physical activity help to strengthen the heart muscle and improve its ability to pump blood throughout the body.

Smoking or Vaping

Tobacco smoke does more than damage your lungs. It accelerates your heartbeat while narrowing your blood vessels and contributes to the formation of blood clots that can lead to heart attack or stroke. Less is known about the risks of vaping, but many of the chemicals involved have been linked to heart disease.

Stress

Pressure and tension can elevate your heart rate and blood pressure—and too much eventually damages your blood vessels. Stress also can lead some people to abuse alcohol and eat too much, as well as smoke. (And, remember, any amount of smoking or vaping is too much.)

Drinking Alcohol

Too much alcohol also can harm your heart. Excessive drinking ups your blood pressure and heart rate as well as your triglycerides, a type of fat linked to heart disease, because they may contribute to hardening and thickening of your arteries.

Sleep Apnea

This sleep disorder causes breathing trouble as you sleep. This both reduces the amount of oxygen to your blood and raises your blood pressure. Together, these can weaken your heart and put you at heightened risk of chronic HBP, atherosclerosis, arrhythmia, and heart failure.

There are multiple tools your doctor will use to determine whether you have heart disease. Note that we said your doctor—diagnosis is your physician’s job. If you have heart attack symptoms, such as shortness of breath or chest pain, don’t waste time searching the internet to figure out the problem. Call 911 immediately. How fast you act just might save your life.

Diagnosing heart disease involves a range of screening tests and, sometimes, tracking devices. Your doctor will ask you about your symptoms, your health history, and any heart disease risk factors you may have. He or she will also give you a physical exam in order to listen to your heart, check its rhythm and the timing of your pulse, and look for signs of swelling and accompanying weight gain due to fluid buildup in the hands, feet, legs, or abdomen—a possible indication of heart failure or heart valve disease.

You may undergo a variety of blood tests that measure different variables as a way to diagnose possible heart disease (or an elevated risk). These include:

Cholesterol Levels

A cholesterol screening panel looks at your total cholesterol, LDL, and HDL. They may also look at your lipoprotein (a), a type of LDL that can be prone to forming blockages in the arteries, as well as apolipoprotein B (ApoB), a protein that moves LDL and very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) around in the body.

Triglycerides

Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the blood. At higher-than-normal levels, they have been linked to heart disease.

High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein

This is a measure of inflammation somewhere in the body (not necessarily the heart). High levels may suggest that a chronic inflammatory disease (such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus) is present, which could also increase your risk for heart disease and stroke.

Plasma Ceramides

These fat molecules accumulate throughout your body as a result of inflammation, high cholesterol and triglycerides, and other heart disease risks. They circulate in your blood and have been linked to plaque buildups.

Natriuretic Peptides

These are proteins produced in your heart and blood vessels; high levels indicate heart failure.

Troponin

This is a protein released by the heart when it’s injured, such as during a heart attack; it can help confirm one has indeed occurred or is occurring, especially when you have chest pain but no other heart attack symptoms. (Troponin levels may also be tested to help diagnose other types of heart disease, such as heart failure.) Doctors look for two types of troponin: troponin I and troponin T.

In addition to the above measurements, you could be given non-invasive diagnostic tests or tools to monitor your heart rhythms. They include:

Chest X-Ray

This imaging test offers a view of the heart and lungs, allowing doctors to identify signs of heart failure, such as fluid in the lungs or an enlarged heart.

Computerized Tomography (CT) Scans

This imaging test uses X-ray technology to create detailed 3D images of your heart, helping your doctor spot coronary artery disease (CAD), heart valve problems, and other heart problems.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)

This imaging test uses magnets and radio waves to make 2D and 3D images of your heart and blood vessels and can help reveal tissue damage caused by a heart attack, reduced blood flow, blocked arteries, heart failure, and more.

Electrocardiogram (EKG)

This test is a routine, non-invasive, and painless screening that measures the electrical signals produced with each heartbeat. It’s used to detect irregularities in the strength and timing of those signals to help identify heart attacks, arrhythmia, heart failure, and other types of heart problems.

Holter Monitors or Event Recorders

These devices are used if your arrhythmia or irregular heart activity doesn’t occur during your EKG, and your doctor wants to monitor your heart’s activity while you go about your daily life. Event recorders are turned on by the user when symptoms begin, whereas Holter monitors—considered more effective because they capture the first stages of any irregular activity—are worn around the clock (except when you’re in the shower.) These smartphone-size devices record your heart’s activity for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

Implantable Loop Recorders

These devices are used if you have infrequent symptoms of arrhythmia, and your doctor is trying to capture what type of arrhythmia you have. This device is implanted just under the skin on your chest, enabling your doctor to record your heart’s rhythms whenever you experience symptoms—even in the middle of the night or when you’re in the shower. Your cardiologist will track your heart’s activities with the chip, recording a continual log for your doctor to review. When the device is removed, it may leave a slight scar, but you’ll likely know exactly what kind of arrhythmia you’re dealing with, and how it should be treated. Loops recorders can remain implanted for up to three years so your doctor can further monitor symptoms.

Exercise Stress Test

For this test, you are hooked up to a heart monitor while you walk on a treadmill or ride a stationary bike. Both your pace and the incline will gradually increase until it feels like you’re walking up a small hill. This makes your heart work harder. Your doctor will monitor your blood pressure, heart rate, and any discomfort you feel to identify signs of coronary artery disease and other types of heart disease.

Echocardiogram

During this painless, radiation-free ultrasound test, your doctor will place a wand-like device on your chest. This device bounces sound waves off various parts of your heart. Those waves are recorded and converted into a detailed picture of your heart that will help your doctor identify any problems, such as malfunctioning valves or signs of infection.

Carotid and Abdominal Ultrasound

These ultrasound tests are used to evaluate your stroke risk or to screen for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, respectively—and they both use sound waves, too. During this safe, painless, and non-invasive test, a gel is spread over your neck, where your carotid artery can be found, or your abdomen. An instrument sends sound waves through the gel, which then bounce back and form an image of the part of your body under examination.

In addition to the above tests, you may be given more invasive diagnostic tests that can help screen for (and in some cases even treat) heart disease. They include:

Cardiac Catheterization

You’ll be awake during this procedure, and you may feel some pressure but no pain. You receive a local anesthetic before your doctor inserts a tube, or sheath, into a blood vessel that leads to your heart. Next, a catheter, inserted into the tube, travels to your heart. Depending on the goal of the procedure, it may be used to diagnose or treat heart disease. For example, your doctor can use this procedure to measure the pressure in your heart’s chambers.

Coronary Angiography

This is the gold standard for diagnosing CAD. It’s performed during a cardiac catheterization. This test uses a special dye that gets injected into your coronary arteries via a catheter. That dye, which can be viewed on an x-ray, shows your doctor where, exactly, your arteries are blocked and how well blood flows through your heart.

Electrophysiology (EP) study

This test is done by inserting an electrode catheter into a blood vessel (usually in your groin) that leads to your heart in order to record your heart’s electrical activity and/or to trigger an arrhythmia to identify an electrical current’s specific pathway. A procedure called ablation—where rogue electrical pathways are sealed to prevent certain types of arrhythmias from occurring—can be done during an EP study.

There is no cure for heart disease. That said, there’s a lot you can do to live well despite having it. Let’s walk through some of the basic lifestyle choices you can implement to help improve your heart health.

Quit Smoking

Smoking not only causes lung cancer. It seriously hurts your heart. Plus, a nicotine or vaping habit damages your arteries, ups your risk of dangerous blood clots, raises your heart rate, and contributes to HBP and high cholesterol. So, make quitting smoking your top priority. Going cold turkey works for some, while others have to slowly wean themselves from lighting up with the help of nicotine patches and other aids, including medications and support groups. Your doctor can walk you through your options, so have that conversation as soon as possible. Visit the American Heart Association to learn more about how to quit.

Lower Your Cholesterol

Cut back and avoid plaque buildup by swapping red meats for lean poultry and fish, consuming fibrous veggies and whole grains, and limiting (or avoiding) the saturated and trans fats found in fried and processed foods. Additional ways to help get your cholesterol in check? Lose a few pounds, exercise more, and if that still isn’t enough, talk to your doctor about medication.

Lower Your Blood Pressure

The same lifestyle changes that help bring down unhealthy cholesterol levels can also help manage your blood pressure, often in tandem with one of the various blood-pressure lowering medications available.

Exercise Regularly

Physical activity of just about any kind beats not moving. That’s because exercise strengthens your heart muscle so that it can do its job more efficiently. It helps lower your cholesterol, blood pressure, and, if you have diabetes, blood sugar levels, too. It also can help with weight loss. Exactly how much exercise you can do depends on your current state of health. Talk to your doctor, who might advise you to start slow and gradually build up endurance. If a walk around the block is your limit, that’s OK—lace up your shoes and get going. Tomorrow, you’ll likely go even further. If you’re recovering from a serious heart issue, cardiac rehabilitation programs can get you started safely.

Eat Less, and Eat Better

Changing how you stock your fridge and pantry is often connected to lowering your cholesterol levels—so follow the same advice: Focus on high-fiber foods, lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, and skip overly processed junk food and fried fare. If you need guidance, consider enlisting a registered dietitian/nutritionist to outline a healthy eating plan for you and provide strategies to stick with your plan to reach your goals.

Lose Weight

Being overweight or obese is hard on your heart. Your body mass index (BMI) measures body fat based on your weight in relation to your height. A BMI of 25 to 29 is considered overweight. You are considered obese if your BMI is 30 or higher. While use of BMI has been questioned by researchers as of late, partly because even the super-fit and muscle-bound may technically have “unhealthy” BMI numbers, some doctors still use it as a guide. More and more, however, physicians are concerned when excess body fat is concentrated around your waist, likely because a lot of belly fat can cause chronic inflammation. The result? Your blood pressure and cholesterol go up and stay up, raising your risk for heart disease at the same time.

If your heart health is at risk, and you find losing weight slowly and safely to be an impossible task, consider securing the services of a registered dietician, or ask your doctor if weight-loss medications or gastric bypass surgery are right for you.

Manage Your Diabetes

Diabetes and heart disease are a deadly combination. People with diabetes have as much as four times the risk of dying from heart disease than someone without this condition. This is in part due to the effect diabetes has on your blood vessels, and also because many other health conditions often accompany diabetes, including HBP, high cholesterol levels, and obesity. Controlling your diabetes through medication and lifestyle changes benefits your heart.

Along with lifestyle changes, medications are a cornerstone of heart disease treatment. The drugs you take will depend on your diagnosis, but these are some commonly used types of medications that will help manage your symptoms and keep your heart working as well as possible.

Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs

The most common cholesterol-lowering medications are a class of drug called a statin. These drugs lower your LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol, the type of cholesterol that clogs your arteries. That reduces your risk of heart attack and stroke. Other LDL lowering drugs are also available if statins are not right for you.

Anti-Coagulants (a.k.a. Blood Thinners)

These drugs help prevent the formation of dangerous blood clots in your arteries, where they would block the flow of blood. They also help to break up any existing blood clots you may have. They are used to both prevent and treat heart attack and stroke.

Anti-Platelets

This type of drugs, which includes aspirin, prevents platelets, a type of cell in your blood, from clumping together and forming clots. This protects you from heart attack and stroke.

Beta Blockers

These drugs both lower your blood pressure and reduce your heart rate. That, in turn, causes your heart’s need for oxygen to drop. They are used to treat high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, certain arrhythmias, and chest pain, or angina.

Calcium Channel Blockers

These drugs lower blood pressure by relaxing the blood vessels and allowing them to open. This allows blood to flow more easily. Some also can slow the heart rate, further lowering blood pressure. In addition to high blood pressure, they’re used to treat chest pain (angina) and arrhythmias.

Nitroglycerin

This drug both prevents and eases chest pain (angina) caused by restricted blood flow to the heart due to CAD. It works by relaxing your blood vessels, which allows more oxygen-rich blood into your heart.

Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE) Inhibitors

These drugs lower blood pressure and ease the heart’s workload, which helps prevent further weakening of the heart. They do this by blocking an enzyme that converts a hormone called angiotensin I into a hormone responsible for raising your BP, called angiotensin II. In addition to lowering your blood pressure, they also treat heart failure and heart attack, and they can help prevent heart attack and stroke.

Diuretics

These drugs, also known as ‘water pills,’ help rid your body of excess salt and water that accumulate due to heart failure and heart valve disease. In heart failure, for example, fluid can build up in your lungs and make it difficult to breathe. Diuretics also are used to treat high blood pressure because they widen blood vessels and reduce the amount of fluid that your heart has to pump through your body.

A wide range of surgical options also exists when heart disease requires more aggressive treatment. These may include the following:

Angioplasty

This procedure relieves chest pain and increases blood flow within a blocked artery. Your doctor threads a long, thin tube through your blood vessels to the point where the blockage is found. Next, a deflated balloon gets directed to the point of the blockage and is briefly inflated to widen the passage. At the same time, you’ll likely have a mesh stent permanently placed at the site of the blockage to keep it open.

Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

This open-heart surgery re-routes the flow of blood around a blocked artery. Your surgeon will take a healthy blood vessel from your chest, leg, or arm, and connect it to a point before and beyond a blockage. That allows blood to bypass the blockage and flow more easily.

Transmyocardial Laser Revascularization

This treatment for angina uses a laser to make channels in the heart muscle and left ventricle in order to let more oxygen-rich blood into the heart. It’s not well-understood why this procedure eases chest pain, but it is usually used in place of bypass surgery, angioplasty, or stenting if someone has more advanced heart disease or additional health problems that can make those procedures too risky.

Heart Valve Repair or Replacement

When one of your heart valves no longer works properly, it can be repaired surgically or replaced with a synthetic or biological valve. The latter can be made from pig, cow, or human heart tissue and may also include synthetic parts. Catheters may also be used for poorly functioning valves.

Implants for Arrhythmia

When drugs do not adequately restore your heart’s normal rhythm, you may require an implantable device such as a pacemaker or an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Both restore your heart’s proper rhythm at times when your heartbeat becomes dangerously irregular.

Surgical Placement of a Ventricular Assist Device (VAD)

During this procedure, a surgeon implants a mechanical, battery-powered device that aids one or both of your ventricles when they can no longer do an adequate job due to heart failure. Often, they are implanted during the period before a heart transplant.

Heart Transplant

This is a treatment of last resort, done during the last stage of heart failure after other medical interventions have been tried. It replaces your diseased heart with a healthy heart from a donor who has recently died.

You’ve received your diagnosis of heart disease, and your doctor has presented you with a treatment plan. What’s next? How much of your old life will you be able to get back? Living with heart disease has challenges—some physical, some emotional, some big, some small. Your goal: to take care of all of you and live your best life.

Your Emotional Life

If you’re not doing well emotionally, you might struggle with other aspects of your treatment, including eating right, exercising, and taking your medications. Depression may be to blame. In fact, about one in five heart disease patients develops serious depression, while many others have milder cases. Research is mixed on why this is, although some scientists believe inflammation is involved. Fortunately, counseling and medication can help. Talk to your doctor if you feel down, unmotivated, or discouraged for more than a week.

Your Stress Levels

Heart disease can feel scary. But those worries can overwhelm you and interfere with enjoying your life. If you struggle with anxiety, try to shift your focus to what’s happening today rather than looking with worry at the future. Talk about your concerns with friends and family and ask them for support. And consider joining a support group (like the American Heart Association’s Support Network) to connect with others who face the same struggles that you do.

Your Activity Levels

Regular exercise and other physical activity help your heart. And moderate exercise like brisk walking or swimming not only helps improve your heart function, it also may enable you stop taking some of your heart medications. Aim for a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise a week—but first, check with your doctor to see what exercises are right for you.

Your Work Life

If you’re recovering from a heart attack or surgery, it may take a few weeks before you can return to your job, but you’ll likely be able to pick up right where you left off. Of course, it depends on the job: If your current one puts too much strain on your heart—physically and, perhaps mentally in the form of stress—you may have to dial back your workload. The Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law, offers workplace protections for people with heart disease.

Your Sex Life

You may have to wait up to six weeks if you have had a heart attack or undergone surgery before you resume your sex life—and only your doctor can tell you when you can safely return to romance. How long abstinence lasts will depend on your symptoms, like lingering chest pain or other complications. To get the all-clear, you may have to undergo an exercise stress test to measure your heart’s capacity to handle any under-the-sheets action.

Return to the Road

Before you climb behind the steering wheel, check your state’s regulations for driving after a serious illness. If you have symptoms like chest pain, don’t drive until they clear up. And if you’ve had surgery, be sure to speak with your doctor about when it may be safe for you to drive.

Get Help if You Need It

You can kickstart your new life with cardiac rehabilitation. This is a medically supervised program that typically lasts for three months. Working with doctors, nurses, exercise specialists, dietitians, and mental health counselors, you will receive exercise training, lessons in healthy eating, methods to reduce stress, and other education designed to help you reduce your risk of worsening heart health.

Remember, you and over 121 million other Americans are facing some type of heart disease together—so you’re not, and never will be, alone in this.

With half of the American population affected by some sort of cardiovascular disease, one thing’s for sure—you've got company. And we’ve got your heart-community covered, whether you’re in the mood for a podcast to help you better understand your new (and necessary) lifestyle changes; a support group that’s been there, lived that, and wants to pay the guidance forward; or an organization who will not only support you with research but will also invite you to a fun run.

Top Heart Disease-Related Podcasts

Give a listen to these informative and inspiring podcasts when you’re in the car, doing the dishes—or taking a heart-healthy walk around the neighborhood!

• Love Your Heart: A Cleveland Clinic Podcast: Your many Qs, answered by experts. Trending topics, diets, and public health scares—discussed by experts. All things heart, all the time, brought to you from the experts at the Cleveland Clinic, presented in layman’s terms.

• Cholesterol Podcasts from The American Heart Association (AHA): By now you should know that a huge factor in heart disease is the health of your heart, your diet, and your cholesterol. The AHA gives tips on how to better manage your LDLs and HDLs through these informative podcasts.

• The Proof: Hosted by Simon Hill, nutritionist, physiotherapist, and certified in plant-based nutrition (it’s a thing), this podcast hones in one the biggest lifestyle change you will be forced to make if you have heart disease: diet. Episodes feature diet approaches, people who have tried them, and guidance for how you can get in on the action.

Top Heart Disease Nonprofits

There’s no shortage of excellent nonprofits dedicated to providing research, education, and community surrounding heart disease. These are just a few of our favorites.

• American Heart Association: Not only do they have endless resources to help you navigate life with heart disease, but they also have the hands-on manpower to quite literally walk you through it. Hosting local events like fun runs (or walks), plus galas across the country, you will never feel alone as long as you’re a part of this nonprofit.

• Women Heart: In the U.S., one in four women die from heart disease, so it’s only fitting there’s a nonprofit completely dedicated to women battling it. They will make you feel empowered and in control of your own health, while connecting you with women—a sisterhood—who will navigate this new reality with you.

• The Heart Foundation: The power behind this foundation is overwhelmingly heartfelt—it was started in memory of a healthy 35-year-old husband and father who suffered a massive heart attack on the basketball court. Today, this foundation fuels research under the direction of world-renowned cardiologist Dr. P.K. Shah, in the quest to find more effective ways to prevent these sudden tragedies.