Living with heart disease and angina

CHD is a narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart.

Angina is chest pain or discomfort that most often occurs when you do certain activities or feel stressed. It is caused by poor blood flow through the blood vessels of the heart muscle.

If you have high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol, your health care provider may advise you to:

Some controllable risk factors for heart disease are:

Good nutrition is important for your heart health. Healthy eating habits will help you control some of your risk factors for CHD.

Your provider may prescribe medicine to treat CHD, high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol levels. These may include:

To reduce the risk of a heart attack, you may also be told to take aspirin, clopidogrel (Plavix), ticagrelor (Brilinta) or prasugrel (Effient) every day. Follow your provider's directions carefully to keep heart disease and angina from getting worse.

Always talk to your provider before you stop taking any of your medicines. Stopping these drugs suddenly or changing your dose can make your angina worse or cause a heart attack.

Create a plan with your provider for managing your angina. Your plan should include:

Know what can make your angina worse, and try to avoid these things. For example, some people find that cold weather, exercising, eating large meals, or getting upset or stressed worsens their angina.

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Mozaffarian D. Nutrition and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. In: Libby P, Bonow RO, Mann DL, Tomaselli GF, Bhatt DL, Solomon SD, eds. Braunwald's Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine. 12th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2022:chap 29.

Stone NJ, Robinson JG, Lichtenstein AH, et al. 2013 ACC/AHA guideline on the treatment of blood cholesterol to reduce atherosclerotic cardiovascular risk in adults: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on practice guidelines. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2014;63(25 Pt B):2889-2934. PMID: 24239923 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24239923/.

Thomasn RJ. Comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation. In: Libby P, Bonow RO, Mann DL, Tomaselli GF, Bhatt DL, Solomon SD, eds. Braunwald's Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine. 12th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2022:chap 33.



Review Date: 8/23/2022
Reviewed By: Thomas S. Metkus, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. Also reviewed by David C. Dugdale, MD, Medical Director, Brenda Conaway, Editorial Director, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
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