Cardiovascular disease Cardiovascular disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. Cardiovascular disease includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, rheumatic heart disease, cardiomyopathy, heart arrhythmia, congenital heart disease, valvular heart disease, carditis, aortic aneurysms, peripheral artery disease, thromboembolic disease, and venous thrombosis. The underlying mechanisms vary depending on the disease. Coronary artery disease, stroke, and peripheral artery disease involve atherosclerosis. This may be caused by high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, lack of exercise, obesity,
Karina W. Davidson next generation of medical school and hospital leaders. While working at Dalhousie University, Davidson became keenly interested in the relationship between psychosocial risk factors and their role in the course and outcome of cardiovascular disease. Since then, she has been the recipient of numerous National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and has authored a number of high impact studies which have contributed to the evidence base of behavioral cardiology, a new frontier in the field of cardiology. In a study of the association between anger expression and coronary heart disease (CHD), Davidson and colleagues found that men who constructively expressed