Cigarette smoking is one of the most powerful and most preventable causes of heart disease, responsible for approximately twenty percent of all cardiovascular deaths in the United States and producing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity through a remarkable diversity of mechanisms that collectively accelerate atherosclerosis, promote thrombosis, impair cardiac function, and dramatically amplify the cardiovascular risk […]
Hypertension, or persistently elevated blood pressure, is the most prevalent modifiable cardiovascular risk factor in the world and the single largest contributor to global cardiovascular mortality, responsible for approximately half of all cardiovascular deaths and playing a causal role in coronary artery disease, heart failure, stroke, chronic kidney disease, and aortic aneurysm at a scale […]
Atherosclerosis is the foundational pathological process underlying the majority of coronary artery disease, ischemic stroke, peripheral arterial disease, and related cardiovascular conditions that collectively represent the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Far from being a simple plumbing problem of cholesterol-clogged arteries, as the condition is frequently depicted in lay descriptions, atherosclerosis is an […]