2023-05-31 08:31:00
heart attacks (expressive)
Time is of the essence when having a heart attack because doctors can quickly restore the heart’s blood supply and prevent or limit damage
A heart attack, or myocardial infarction, occurs when oxygen-rich blood does not reach part of the heart muscle. A heart attack is different from a cardiac arrest.
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), seizures are caused by poor circulation, while strokes are caused by an electrical failure in the heart that leads to a sudden stop of beating, according to a report published by Live Science.
Heart muscle cells are damaged and die when blood flow decreases, and the more time passes without blood flow, the greater the damage to the heart muscle. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease.
“silent” seizures
And the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that one out of every 5 heart attacks is “silent”, which means that it goes unnoticed due to the absence of explicit symptoms, such as chest pain or shortness of breath, and according to the Harvard Health Journal, heart attacks affect Silent on men more than women.
For his part, Bill Schott, writer, zoologist and author of the book “Pump: A Natural History of the Heart”, explained in a televised intervention with Live Science that a heart attack is a medical emergency that occurs over minutes or hours, but the basis for this event is determined. years or decades ago.
heart function
The heart is a muscular organ. An adult’s heart beats 100,000 times a day, pumping about 1.5 gallons of oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood through the body every minute. Blood first travels from the heart to the lungs, where it is re-oxygenated, before returning to the heart to be pumped into the arteries to supply oxygen and nutrients to the brain, digestive system, and the rest of the body’s tissues.
Expressive heart disease
Coronary arteriosclerosis
According to the American Heart Association, narrowing of the primary coronary arteries most often occurs in the lead-up to a myocardial infarction, reducing the heart muscle’s supply of oxygen and nutrients over years to decades. Atherosclerosis is due, to a large extent, to the accumulation of fatty plaques in the walls of the arteries, which are hard on the outside and soft on the inside and cause hardening of the arteries.
blood clots
According to the Cleveland Clinic, sometimes a crack occurs in the hard outer surface of the plaques and components of the blood, called platelets, stick to the cracks, forming blood clots that further narrow the artery.
If the arteries are already narrowed by years of atherosclerosis, the clot can completely block blood flow to the heart. Parts of the plaque can also break off and move through the artery, quickly worsening the blockage. These blockages can lead to a heart attack, and within a few minutes, the heart muscle cells become damaged and begin to die.
sudden spasm
Less common causes of heart attacks are where a sudden spasm or contraction of the coronary artery walls blocks blood flow to the heart muscle and causes a heart attack. According to the journal Penn Medicine, sudden spasms occur most often in smokers and people with high cholesterol or high blood pressure, and spasms can sometimes be caused by the use of stimulants, among other triggers.
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Warning signs
According to the CDC, warning signs of a heart attack include:
• Chest pain or discomfort: Most heart attacks involve feeling uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain in the center or left side of the chest. This discomfort usually lasts for more than a few minutes before subsiding, or sometimes, coming and going and then coming back.
• Pain in different areas: The patient suffers from pain and discomfort in the upper part of the body, such as the jaw, neck, back, arms or shoulders.
•shortness of breath
• A feeling of weakness, dizziness or fainting
• Unusual or unexplained fatigue
Nausea or vomiting
Heart attack symptoms can be different for men and women, although chest pain or discomfort is the primary symptom for both sexes. But women are more likely to have other symptoms less associated with a heart attack, such as unusual or unexplained fatigue and nausea or vomiting.
winter months
A scientific review, published in the journal Cardiology in Review, reports that myocardial infarctions are more common in the winter months than at other times of the year, and can be triggered by physical and emotional stressors, such as vigorous exercise, intense fear, or anger.
The American Heart Association said that hereditary factors, tobacco smoking, an unhealthy lifestyle, and not getting enough physical activity, can increase the risk of a heart attack. Long-term exposure to air pollution can also increase the risk of heart attacks.
Common treatment methods
A report issued by the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) revealed that the initial treatment for a heart attack includes removing the blood clot or plaques that block the artery to reduce damage to the heart muscle, indicating that time is a critical factor in saving the patient’s life, because the speed of his arrival to the hospital, They give doctors the opportunity to restore the heart’s blood supply and prevent or limit damage.
Blood flow can be restored through angioplasty (a noninvasive, non-invasive procedure used to widen narrowed or blocked arteries), stents (the insertion of a small mesh tube that opens weak or narrowed arteries) or coronary artery bypass grafting (open-heart surgery used to restore blood flow in cases of severe heart attacks).
The NHLBI report adds that patients can also be given drugs to prevent further blood clotting, such as aspirin, while additional treatments include nitroglycerin, or nitrates, which improve blood flow in the coronary arteries and relieve chest pain, as well as drugs that help dissolve blood clots.
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