Each Year 1. 1 Million people in the United States have heart attacks and almost half of them die. Even though heart attacks isn’t the end of a person’s life, people can still live an active, productive life after a heart attack, because people can live healthier lives and people can go about doing things like before. This disease will take you by surprise all of a sudden. It may be surprising that while many women believe breast cancer is most threatening to them, it is a fact that they are eight times more likely to die of a heart attack.
There are many reasons people have heart attacks like smoking, eating an unbalanced diet, and living a sedentary lifestyle. Heart attacks can also be inherited genetically. Heart attacks happen as a result of coronary heart disease, also called coronary artery disease. Coronary heart disease is a condition in which a waxy substance called plaque builds up inside the coronary arteries. These arteries supply oxygen rich blood to your heart. When this plaque builds up in the arteries, atherosclerosis then happens.
Coronary Artery Disease which often leads to a heart attack is by far the leading cause of death of both men and women. Other Names for a heart attack include the name Myocardial Infarction, Coronary Thrombosis and Coronary Occlusion. A Heart attack occurs when blood supply to part of the heart muscle itself is severely reduced or stopped. Plaque build up is one way of causing a heart attack, deposits of fat like substance this is when plaque blocks in artery and eventually bursting, tearing, and even rupturing where in which a blood clot forms and blocks the artery. This is and when a heart attack takes place.
But as well there is also soft and vulnerable plaque in which doctors used to believe that the reason for heart attacks and strokes were the buildup of fatty plaque within an artery leading to the heart or the brain. Researchers are now founding out that people who have heart attacks do not have arteries severely narrowed by plaque but instead plaque may be buried inside the artery wall and might not always bulge out and block the blood flow. But instead inflammation leads to what is called soft or vulnerable plaque in which different cell types help with blood clotting.
Heart Attack Symptoms You’re Most Likely to Ignore Heart attacks don’t always strike out of the blue — there are many symptoms we can watch for in the days and weeks leading up to an attack. But the symptoms may not be the ones we expect. And they can be different in men and women, and different still in older adults. and shouldn’t. 1. Indigestion or nausea one of the most oft-overlooked signs of a heart attack is nausea and stomach pain. Symptoms can range from mild indigestion to severe nausea, cramping, and vomiting.
Others experience a cramping-style ache in the upper belly. Women and adults over age 60 are more likely to experience this symptom and not recognize it as tied to cardiac health. Most cases of stomach ache and nausea aren’t caused by a heart attack, of course. But watch out for this sign by becoming familiar with your own digestive habits; pay attention when anything seems out of the ordinary, particularly if it comes on suddenly and you haven’t been exposed to stomach flu and haven’t eaten anything out of the ordinary.
2. Jaw, ear, neck, or shoulder pain A sharp pain and numbness in the chest, shoulder, and arm is an indicator of heart attack, but many people don’t experience heart attack pain this way at all. Instead, they may feel pain in the neck or shoulder area, or it may feel like it’s running along the jaw and up by the ear. Some women specifically report feeling the pain between their shoulder blades.