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What is a heart attack?What is a heart attack? The heart is a powerful muscular pump that drives blood around the body. To keep the heart healthy, the muscles of the heart need to be supplied with blood by the coronary arteries. If one of the coronary arteries becomes blocked – for example by a blood clot – part of the heart may be starved of oxygen and become permanently damaged. This is what happens if you have a heart attack, sometimes called a Coronary Thrombosis or Myocardial Infarction, (MI).A heart attack usually causes severe pain in the centre of the chest. The pain lasts for more than 15 minutes, and may last for many hours. The pain usually feels like a heaviness or tightness, which may also spread to the arms, neck, jaw, back or stomach. A person having a heart attack may also sweat, feel light-headed, feel sick, or be short of breath. In some cases people have mistaken the pain for indigestion. A heart attack may cause the rhythm of the heart to become disturbed. However, sometimes a heart attack is ‘silent’ and produces little discomfort. You may not even know that you have had one until you have a medical investigation for other symptoms or a routine medical examination. What can cause a heart attack?A heart attack is a sudden and often dramatic event, but it is usually the result of a process that has been going on for many years. The walls of the coronary arteries may have become narrowed by a gradual build-up of fatty material. This condition is called ‘atherosclerosis’. The fatty material is called ‘artheroma’.The walls of these diseased arteries may crack and blood cells, called ‘platelets’, become attracted to the damaged area. A clot (or thrombosis), that includes fibrous material called ‘fibrin’, may form on top of this. This can suddenly and completely block off the artery. If the artery is blocked for more than a few minutes, the muscle area of the heart supplied by that artery may become permanently damaged. This is called a heart attack. Often, the amount of muscle damage is small, and once the heart attack is over, there is enough good muscle left for the heart to carry on its work satisfactorily. Heart attack - contributing factorsHeart attacks often seem to happen to people who seem to have been perfectly well. In other people, a heart attack may follow weeks, months or years of angina. In many cases, a heart attack happens when a person’s pattern of angina has recently changed from ‘stable angina’ to ‘unstable angina’. Stable angina is angina that comes on with a particular amount of exercise, and is well controlled with drugs. If the pattern changes and the angina comes on with less and less exercise, or even while you are resting, this is known as ‘unstable angina’.Heart attacks can start at any time of the day or night, when you are either resting, or being active. A heart attack can, occasionally be brought on by doing energetic activity which you are not used to, or by intense physical or emotional stress. It is not known for certain why heart attacks happen as they do, but we know a lot about why people get coronary heart disease. There are four major lifestyle ‘risk factors’ – things that increase people’s risk of having a heart attack. These are:
Other lifestyle factors also play a part. These include: drinking too much alcohol, having too much salt and being overweight or obese. Heart attacks can run in families. One hereditary condition, which causes coronary heart disease, is called familial hyperlipidaemia (or hypercholesterolaemia) or FH. People with diabetes are also more likely to get coronary heart disease, although the reason for this is not clear. Have you suffered from a heart attack? Why not share your experience on our Message Board You are here: Home >> Articles >> What is a Heart Attack ? |
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