A stress test is a test for cardiac function in individuals that are a suspect. These are called upon in individuals who have a history of bad lifestyle habits, smoking, and even congenital heart diseases. The stress test basically requires that a person performs a certain amount of exercise while being hooked up to an electrocardiogram while elements like blood pressure are also measured. While still being widely used to check for the level of heart function, there is also a certain amount of criticism that the test comes in for. The most scathing of these is the indictment that even if a stress test was done an hour prior to the onset of a heart attack, it could not have given adequate predictions of its onset.
Stress testing can be done in collusion with some other techniques like tomography. This involves the injection of a dye into the blood and then rapidly taking x-rays to check for the level of circulation. Stress testing fundamentally checks for the strength of the left ventricular muscle to pump. This is the muscle that does most of the hard work in pumping. Heart disease can be of various types but some of the most prominent of these are occlusions and myopathy. The heart is basically one big muscle and just like all muscles it is susceptible to degradation. While myopathy can be checked for using a stress test, a blood test for creatine kinase is usually also warranted to check for the dystrophy of heart muscle. Occlusions are the other type of heart disease that can occur. This is usually caused by the buildup of lipid substances within the blood vessels of the heart. Cholesterol buildup is usually the incriminating aspect here. When this happens, the plaques choke off supply to the heart causing a heart attack.
Preventing heart disease requires years of taking care of oneself. One of the most important things to do is to stick to a vegetarian diet as much as possible. This will prevent the unnecessary overload of cholesterol from the diet onto the system. Additionally, it is also necessary to exercise with cardiovascular exercise, which induces the liver to create high density lipoproteins. These will ensure that all free cholesterol in the body is mopped up and sent to the liver where it is broken down. It will also send cholesterol to the organs that really require it.