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What is a heart attack
The heart is a double pump that circulates blood around the body. It picks up oxygenated blood from the lungs and sends it around the body through muscular blood vessels called arteries. At the same time, the heart pumps deoxygenated blood from the body back to the lungs.
To perform its duties, the heart needs a generous supply of oxygen and nutrients, which it receives from the two coronary arteries and their branches. If blood flow in one or both of these arteries is blocked, the heart is starved of oxygen and nutrients and the heart muscle cells, called myocardial cells, are damaged. This is a heart attack. The severity of the heart attack depends on how many myocardial cells are damaged or killed.
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Heart attack Symptoms
Heart attack symptoms can vary, a heart attack can be mild, moderate or severe. Some people experience few symptoms or none at all, or confuse the symptoms with indigestion. Typical symptoms can include:
- Chest pain or discomfort, like a feeling of pressure or constriction, which typically persists for more than 10 to 15 minutes and is not relieved by rest and angina tablets or similar spray (if the person has been prescribed these).
- Pain or heaviness in the arms, shoulders, back, throat or jaw.
- Nausea and vomiting.
- Sweating.
- Breathlessness.
- Collapse.
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A heart attack can ‘stun’ the heart and interrupt its rhythm and ability to pump. Instead of beating normally, the rhythm can be chaotic (ventricular fibrillation) or stop the heart altogether, causing cardiac arrest.
A cardiac arrest can follow on from the symptoms of a heart attack or strike suddenly. Typically, the person falls unconscious, has no pulse and usually stops breathing. This is an extreme medical emergency. Without immediate help, the person will die.
Ambulance paramedics or hospital staff will need to use a special device called a defibrillator, which passes an electric jolt through the heart which may start it beating again. In the absence of such specialised equipment, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is crucial. This combines mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage. CPR can keep the person alive until an ambulance arrives |
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Heart attack treatment
Tests to diagnose a heart attack include an electrocardiogram (ECG) to track abnormalities of the heartbeat and blood tests. Treatments include:
- Drugs
- Surgery
- Catheterisation procedure to overcome the blood clot that is causing the blockage,
- Long-term use of medications to lower the risk of further heart problems. These medications, as advised by your doctor, often include a small regular dose of aspirin, a statin (a type of cholesterol-lowering medication), a beta-blocker and an ACE inhibitor.
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Change your lifestyle to reduce the risk
Addressing the lifestyle factors that contribute to coronary heart disease is the best way to prevent a heart attack. Losing excess weight and enjoying healthy eating and regular physical activity are essential.
If you are a smoker, the most significant change you can make is to quit. Smoking can increase your risk of heart attack by 2–6 times. The nicotine in cigarettes prompts the build-up of fatty deposits inside arteries, and makes blood stickier and more inclined to clot.
Things to remember
- A heart attack occurs when the artery or arteries that supply the heart with oxygen and nutrients are blocked.
- The precursor to most heart attacks is a condition called coronary heart disease, which means the arteries are silted up with fatty deposits.
- The development of these fatty deposits is associated with many factors, including smoking, lack of physical activity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol levels, diabetes and being overweight
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