The number of categories of adverse childhood experiences (psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; violence against mother; or living with household members who used substances, mentally ill, suicidal, or incarcerated) showed a graded correlation with the presence of adult diseases including coronary artery (ischemic heart) disease. Hemostatic factors: High levels of fibrinogen and coagulation factor VII are associated with an increased risk of CAD. Low hemoglobin. In the Asian population, the b fibrinogen gene G-455A polymorphism was associated with the risk of CAD. Pathophysiology
Limitation of blood flow to the heart causes ischemia (cell starvation secondary to a lack of oxygen) of the hearts muscle cells. The hearts muscle cells may die from lack of oxygen and this is called a myocardial infarction (commonly referred to as a heart attack). It leads to damage, death, and eventual scarring of the heart muscle without regrowth of heart muscle cells. Chronic high-grade narrowing of the coronary arteries can induce transient ischemia which leads to the induction of a ventricular arrhythmia, which may terminate into a dangerous heart rhythm known as ventricular fibrillation, which often leads to death.Typically, coronary artery disease occurs when part of the smooth, elastic lining inside a coronary artery (the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle) develops atherosclerosis. With atherosclerosis, the arterys lining becomes hardened, stiffened, and accumulates deposits of calcium, fatty lipids, and abnormal inflammatory cells – to form a plaque.
The most common treatment is dopamine replacement therapy, which consists in the administration of levodopa (L-Dopa) or dopamine agonists (such as pramipexole or ropinirole) to patients. Dopamine replacement therapy is well known to improve motor symptoms but its effects in cognitive and behavioral symptoms are more complex. Dopamine has been related to the normal learning of stimuli with behavioral and motivational significance, attention, and most importantly the reward system. In accordance with the role of dopamine in reward processing, addictive drugs stimulate dopamine release. Although the exact mechanism has yet to be elucidated, the role of dopamine in the reward system and addiction has been proposed as the origin of DDS. Models of addiction have been used to explain how dopamine replacement therapy produces DDS. One of these models of addiction proposes that over the usage course of a drug there is a habituation to the rewarding effects that it produces at the initial stages. This habituation is thought to be dopamine mediated. With long-term administration of L-dopa the reward system gets used to it and needs higher quantities. As the user increases drug intake there is a loss of dopaminergic receptors in the striatum which acts in addition to an impairment in goal-direction mental functions to produce an enhancement of sensitization to dopamine therapy. The behavioral and mood symptoms of the syndrome are produced by the dopamine overdose. Diagnosis
Diagnosis of the syndrome is clinical since there are no laboratory tests to confirm it.