Causes of Cardiovascular Diseases - Essay Example

It is commonly known that when a person engages in physical activities, the heart rate and blood pressure increase, making the heart be exercised as well. Moreover, healthy diets are now getting popularly advertised and embraced for the same reason of having health benefits. In relation to cardiovascular diseases, Ivan Gyarfas states that there are no vaccines against such diseases but there is prevention. He mentions having healthy living as the top reason for such prevention. In the past three decades, studies show that the death rate caused by cardiovascular diseases decreased by forty percent.

The reason for two-thirds of the decline is the awareness and practice adopted by people about healthy lifestyles. Diets were designed to reduce calories, fats, and salts that improved control of hypertension, the growing popularity of fitness exercises, and smoking cessation--all of which have nothing to do with drug medications(1). This shows that indeed, eating healthy foods, exercising, and quitting smoking all lead to a better healthy body. One of the causes of cardiovascular diseases that have caught the attention of researchers lately is the psychosocial factor.

The authors, Susan Everson-Rose and Tene Lewis claim that this is an important factor that must be considered in treating or preventing the disease and studies must be strengthened so that the relation of such factor will be established as a well-researched standard. The two writers claim that the emotional state of a person contributes as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Among the conditions they have explained are anger and hostility which are said to be “typically characterized by a suspicious, mistrustful attitude or disposition toward interpersonal relationships and the wider environment, considered to be enduring which means, it is a personality trait” (475).

“Anger is an emotion which is considered to be one component of a broader, multi-dimensional construct that includes hostility and aggressive behavior”. This emotion is caused by perceptions of unjust events or actions (Everson-Rose & Lewis, 475) which could probably be true or imagined. Injustice causes anger which eventually causes hostility that somehow affects how the heart functions which consequently turns to heart problems. Other factors that are considered psychosocial are environmental stressors.

Examples of such are work-related stress and acute life stress. As mentioned earlier, researchers are seriously considering the possible effects of such factors in patients however, Lang, Lepage, Schieber Lamy, and Kelly acknowledge in their article the fact that this is not fully supported. The reason for this is perhaps the multiple factors that may be involved, practiced by patients who were also used as research materials. Among the other factors that affect the poor acknowledgment of work-related risk factors are smoking and high cholesterol (7).

Other psychosocial factors are social factors that take on the subsets of social ties, social support, and social conflict. It has been observed that people with strong support systems like family and friends; reduce their risk of having heart problems.