Nearly seven percent of American adults are currently living with coronary artery disease, making it the most common type of heart disease in the United States.
The disease is caused by plaque buildup on the walls of the arteries that supply blood to the heart. Over time, the plaque narrows the arteries, which can partially or completely block blood flow. This process is called atherosclerosis.
Atherosclerosis can cause chest pain, but many people don’t learn they have coronary artery disease until after a heart attack.
Left untreated, the heart muscle can weaken, which may lead to heart failure: a serious condition where the heart can no longer pump blood the way it should.
If you’ve been diagnosed with coronary artery disease, there are many steps you can take to improve your heart health and prevent further damage.
Medication to Treat Coronary Artery Disease
Medications are a common treatment for coronary artery disease. They may include:
- Anticoagulants to help prevent blood clots that can lead to a heart attack or stroke
- Antiplatelets to stop platelets, which are cells in the blood, from sticking together and forming a clot
- ACE inhibitors to widen your blood vessels, increasing the amount of blood your heart pumps and lowering your blood pressure. They also raise blood flow, which helps ease your heart’s workload.
- Beta blockers to block the effects of adrenaline and slow the heart’s rate, lessening its demand for oxygen. They’re one of the most widely prescribed medications for high blood pressure.
- Calcium channel blockers to relax blood vessels and increase the supply of blood and oxygen to your heart, easing your heart’s workload
- Nitroglycerin to widen the arteries that supply your heart with blood, improving blood flow and relieving chest pain or pressure from coronary artery disease. It comes in quick- and long-acting forms.
- Glycoprotein IIb-IIIa to stop platelets from sticking together and clotting
- Statins to lower cholesterol by blocking a substance your body needs to make cholesterol. They’ve also been shown to stabilize the plaque on artery walls and lower the risk for certain blood clots.
Heart-Healthy Lifestyle Changes
Leading a heart healthy life is essential to preventing further damage from coronary artery disease. This can mean different things to different people, but areas of focus include smoking, diet, and exercise.
Quitting smoking and avoiding secondhand smoke can help reverse the damage smoking has caused to the heart and blood vessels. In people with coronary artery disease, studies have shown that quitting smoking reduces the risk of another heart attack and death by as much as 50 percent.
There’s no one-size-fits-all diet. In general, aim to limit your consumption of saturated fats and salt. Saturated fats can increase cholesterol, which is one of the main culprits of artery-clogging plaque. And salt can increase blood pressure.
Most of the salt and a lot of the saturated fat in our diets comes from processed foods. Aim to eat fewer processed foods and focus on getting plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains and lean protein.
Exercise is crucial to managing coronary artery disease. When done consistently, exercise can:
- Enhance the cardiorespiratory system
- Increase HDL (“good”) cholesterol
- Lower triglycerides, a type of fat that circulates in the blood
- Reduce blood pressure and heart rate
If you’re new to exercise, anything is better than nothing. The ideal amount for adults, according to the ^Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise a week – spread out however you like – and two 30-minute sessions of resistance training each week.
Procedures to Treat Coronary Artery Disease
It’s possible to develop coronary artery disease despite eating a healthy diet and not smoking. There are a number of risk factors that can’t be influenced, including your age, gender, and genes.
Similarly, lifestyle changes and medications alone may not be enough for some people with coronary artery disease. In those instances, procedures to restore blood flow may be required.
- Angioplasty, often referred to as Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI), opens the affected artery and restores blood flow. A thin tube with a balloon on the end is threaded through a blood vessel to the narrowed or blocked artery. Once it’s in place, the balloon is inflated, pushing the plaque outward. Sometimes, a small mesh tube called a stent is placed in the artery to keep it open.
- A coronary artery bypass graft uses a piece of a healthy blood vessel from elsewhere in the body to bypass the blocked artery segment.
If a procedure is required, your cardiologist will be able to help determine which one is right for you.