Heart disease is the general term used to refer to problems that affect one or more components of the human heart. The most common cause of heart disease is the narrowing or blockage of the heart’s arteries which leads to a heart attack. Some types of heart diseases include Coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy, heart failure, and cardiovascular diseases. Heart disease isn’t contagious — you can’t catch it like you can the flu or a cold. Instead, certain things increase a person’s chances of getting cardiovascular disease. Doctors call these things risk factors.
Some of these risk factors a person can’t do anything about, like being older and having other people in the family who have had the same problems. But people do have control over some risk factors — smoking, having high blood pressure, being overweight, and not exercising can increase the risk of getting cardiovascular disease. 2nd: Cerebrovascular Disease (Stroke) Closely related to number 1, cerebrovascular disease or stroke occurs when blood is not supplied to some parts of the brain due to blockage (ischemic stroke) or bursting (hemorrhagic stroke) of a blood vessel in the body.
Seventy percent of stroke cases in the Philippines are ischemic in nature. A stroke attack happens suddenly but it can be prevented by early diagnosis and treatment of hypertension or high levels of cholesterol. While stroke commonly happens to the elderly, congenital defects can also cause it to occur in younger persons. 3rd: Malignant Neoplasm (Cancer) Cancer is a class of disease in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth through division beyond normal limits, invasion that intrudes upon and destroys adjacent tissues, and sometimes metastasis, in which cancer cells spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 12 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year. If no urgent action is taken, the number of cancer deaths may reach 17 million by the year 2030. Fifty thousand cancer cases have been recorded in the Philippines and the number is estimated to increase by 5% every year. Meanwhile, 16% of these recorded deaths are due to breast cancer. In order of killing contribution, cancers of the lung, breast, cervix, liver, colon and rectum, prostate, stomach, oral cavity, ovary and leukemia are the specific leading cancer killers in the Philippines today.