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What is a Heart Attack?
Let’s talk more about AMI and/or heart attacks in depth. Each day an average heart “beats”
100,000 times and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood. The heart is supplied blood through its
coronary arteries. With coronary heart disease (CHD), plague and fatty substances build up
inside the walls of the arteries. The plague also attracts blood components, which stick to the
artery wall.
Called atherosclerosis, the process develops gradually, over many years. It can even
begin with childhood.
The fatty buildup or plaque can lead to the formation of a blood clot.
The clot reduces blood
flow. This cycle of fatty buildup and clot formation causes the coronary arteries to narrow.
When too little blood reaches the heart, the condition is called ischemia.
With ischemia, angina
(chest pain) may occur. The pain can vary in episodes and be mild and intermittent, or more
pronounced and steady. It can even be severe enough to cause normal activities to be difficult.
Approximately 9 million people in the United States suffer from angina each year according to
the American Heart Association. The same inadequate blood supply also may cause no
symptoms, a condition called silent ischemia.
If a blood clot suddenly cuts off most or all the blood supply to the heart, a heart attack results.
Cells in the heart that do not receive enough oxygen-carrying blood begin to die.
The more time
that goes by without treatment to restore blood flow, the more irreversible damage is done to the
heart.
Risk Factors:
Heart attacks strike both men and women. Because of risk factors some people are more likely
than others to have a heart attack. Risk factors are behaviors or conditions that increase the
chance of a disease. Some risk factors for heart attacks are beyond your control, but most can be
adjusted to help you lower your risk of having a first-or repeat-heart attack. Those factors are:
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