YOUR HEALTH - MEDICINE 101

ANEURYSMS

All of us have about 5 liters of blood in our bodies. And it's all pumped around our own personal plumbing system of arteries and veins. Normally, the only way blood gets outside these internal pipes is if you cut yourself. But you can also burst an artery and that's called an aneurysm. Here's what happens.

An artery takes blood away from the heart. It’s surrounded by thick layers of muscle designed to take the force of the heart as it pumps blood. They stretch a little bit with each jet of blood that the heart pumps in and then they recoil, pushing the blood further down. That stretching and recoil is what you feel at the wrist .. it’s your pulse. This is the aorta, the largest artery in the body. It takes blood down through the back of the chest and abdomen, sending branches out to all the vital organs. The aorta is the pipe that most commonly bursts. The inside diameter of the aorta is usually about 2 cm but sometimes, with atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries, the wall of the aorta weakens and the pressure generated by the blood flowing past causes the wall to bulge out like this. The circular muscle wall has been weakened and stretched out of shape, like the bulge on a tire. This is a human time bomb. If this weakened, dilated area gives way it’s a life-threatening situation because of the high blood pressure within the aorta. If it starts to leak then blood gushes out.

Two-thirds of patients who’s aortic aneurysm burst die within a few minutes. For those that survive, the only possible treatment is to operate and remove the leaking or ruptured aneurysm. It’s replaced with this nylon tube. We sew it to the normal aorta above and below the leak and that allows blood to flow in it’s proper channel. Aneurysms are most commonly caused by atherosclerosis, that process that builds up cholesterol and other fatty deposits within the artery walls.

So, what can you do to protect yourself? Pay attention to the risk factors. Quit smoking, lower your cholesterol and you likely won’t need to call a plumber to fix your clogged drains and burst pipes.