The virus attacks the heart muscle, causing inflammation and disrupting the electrical pathways that signal the heart to beat properly. Most of the time, the body will heal itself and you may never know you had a problem. However, in rare cases, the infection itself and the resulting inflammation can damage and weaken the heart. This can also trigger heart failure and heart rhythm irregularities.
This condition can happen to people who seem to be in good health. The only sign of viral heart disease is flu-like symptoms for some people. Although a wide variety of viruses may affect the heart, only a few are more commonly linked to myocarditis and other heart problems.
The adenovirus is one of the most common viral causes of myocarditis in both children and adults. It typically causes respiratory infections. It may also cause bladder and bowel infections. The virus spreads through contact with droplets from the nose and throat of an infected person.
This group of viruses includes the herpes simplex viruses , varicella-zoster virus which causes chickenpox and shingles , and the Epstein-Barr virus which causes mononucleosis. Up to 90 percent of adults have been infected with the Epstein-Barr virus. CMV typically lays dormant and harmless in the body, but it can cause infections, including viral heart infection. The viruses are spread through contact with body fluids of an infected person.
They can also be transmitted from a pregnant woman to a fetus during pregnancy. This is the most common cause of myocarditis, blamed for about half of all cases. It can cause the flu or attack the heart, creating an infection that lasts from 2 to 10 days. Cardiac symptoms can potentially occur within two weeks. Symptoms may include fever, fatigue, and chest pains. This virus is transmitted through fecal material, so some of the best prevention methods are washing your hands and improving your overall hygiene.
Coronary artery disease symptoms may be different for men and women. For instance, men are more likely to have chest pain. Women are more likely to have other signs and symptoms along with chest discomfort, such as shortness of breath, nausea and extreme fatigue. You might not be diagnosed with coronary artery disease until you have a heart attack, angina, stroke or heart failure.
It's important to watch for cardiovascular symptoms and discuss concerns with your doctor. Cardiovascular disease can sometimes be found early with regular evaluations. Your heart may beat too quickly, too slowly or irregularly. Heart arrhythmia signs and symptoms can include:. Serious heart defects that you're born with congenital heart defects usually are noticed soon after birth.
Heart defect signs and symptoms in children could include:. Less serious congenital heart defects are often not diagnosed until later in childhood or during adulthood. Signs and symptoms of congenital heart defects that usually aren't immediately life-threatening include:. In early stages of cardiomyopathy, you may have no symptoms. As the condition worsens, symptoms may include:.
Endocarditis is an infection that affects the inner lining of your heart chambers and heart valves endocardium. Heart infection signs and symptoms can include:. The heart has four valves — the aortic, mitral, pulmonary and tricuspid valves — that open and close to direct blood flow through your heart. Many things can damage your heart valves, leading to narrowing stenosis , leaking regurgitation or insufficiency or improper closing prolapse. Depending on which valve isn't working properly, valvular heart disease signs and symptoms generally include:.
Heart disease is easier to treat when detected early, so talk to your doctor about your concerns regarding your heart health.
If you're concerned about developing heart disease, talk to your doctor about steps you can take to reduce your heart disease risk. This is especially important if you have a family history of heart disease. If you think you may have heart disease, based on new signs or symptoms you're having, make an appointment to see your doctor.
Heart disease causes depend on your specific type of heart disease. There are many different types of heart disease. To understand the causes of heart disease, it helps to understand how the heart works. A typical heart has two upper and two lower chambers. The upper chambers, the right and left atria, receive incoming blood.
The lower chambers, the more muscular right and left ventricles, pump blood out of the heart. The heart valves, which keep blood flowing in the right direction, are gates at the chamber openings. Your heart is a pump. It's a muscular organ about the size of your fist, located slightly left of center in your chest. Your heart is divided into the right and the left sides. Four heart valves keep your blood moving the right way by opening only one way and only when they need to.
To work properly, the valves must be formed properly, must open all the way and must close tightly so there's no leakage. The four valves are:. Your heart's electrical wiring keeps it beating. Diabetes, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol are well-known risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
But what about just getting sick? Could picking up some type of bug increase your chance of having a stroke or heart attack? Researchers have linked infections such as pneumonia and urinary tract infections to an increased risk of having a coronary event, such as a heart attack, or stroke within the next three months.
In the study published recently in the Journal of the American Heart Association , academic researchers examined a registry of patients tracked over multiple years in four U. They looked at 1, patients who had a heart attack or other type of coronary event, and other patients who had an ischemic stroke, the kind caused by a blood clot. Of the heart disease patients, about 37 percent had some type of infection within the previous three months.
Among stroke patients, it was nearly 30 percent. Infections substantially increased the odds of having a heart attack or stroke compared to a year or two earlier in the same group of patients, and those odds were highest in the first two weeks following the infection.
Infections generally trigger an inflammatory reaction in the body, said Dr. Kamakshi Lakshminarayan, a neurologist and the study's senior author. The body triggers its white cell production to help ward off an infection, but that process also increases the stickiness of cells called platelets, she said.
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