Causes Of Heart Attack, Know Them They're Precursor Warnings To You
Causes of Heart Attack, should you Know?
You better. If not, you don't even know your heart is crying out for help because it's overloaded......
I touch on this subject because I'm always in tears when I hear news of friends, colleagues and family members who die prematurely from heart attack.......
Heart attack is no joke; it's the number one killer disease that claims countless precious livies, men and women.....
You and I should know what causes heart attack to better prepare ourselves to take good care of our heart and to prevent it.
As we age, our heart lose some blood-pumping ability. This is normal.
But what I'm touching on here is the more serious loss that we call heart failure (or heart attack) that results from increased stress of health conditions that either damage our heart or make it work too hard.
I'm going to list down the causes of heart attack below.
If you suspect that you've heart attack, odds are you've 1 or more of the problems listed. For some of them, you may not even know you've them.......
The listed conditions cause the "wear and tear" that leads to heart failure and heart attack. If you identify having more than 1 of these conditions, your risk of heart failure increases significantly.
Causes of Heart Attack
1. Coronary Artery Disease
When you build up cholesterol and fatty deposits in your heart's arteries, you've less blood flowing to your heart muscle. This damages your heart muscle and the remaining undamaged, healthy heart tissues has to work doubly hard.
When your blood pressure shoots up uncontrollably, it increases your risk of developing heart attack by 2-3 times.
When your blood pressure is too high, your heart needs to pump harder than normal to keep the blood flowing. This takes a toll on your heart and over time, your heart chambers get larger and weaker.
3. Diabetes
With diabetes, you tend to develop hypertension and atherosclerosis from elevated lipid levels in your blood and both are linked to heart failure.
4. Obesity
Obesity is one of the most common causes of heart attack.
If you're obese, the risk of heart attack increases significantly especially if you've much of the fat deposited in your abdomen as abdominal fat is the type of fat closely associated with heart attack.
A rule of thumb is that for men, a waist circumference of more than 85 cm (34 inches) and for women, a waist circumference of more than 80 cm (32 inches), increases the risk.
5. Stress
Stress, previously considered not linked much to heart attack, now surfaces as one of the major causes of heart attack since it actually doubles the risk of heart attack.
Studies have indicated that stress is most dangerous when it's "permanent" and when it's constantly present whether at home or at work.
6. Smoking
Smoking is associated with a 36% increase in risk of heart attack.
Smoking 1 to 5 cigarettes a day increases heart attack risk by 40% compared with non-smokers.
Smoking 20 cigarettes a day (one pack) is associated with a 4-fold increase in risk of heart attack.
Smoking 2 or more packs a day is associated with a 9-fold increase in risk.
Get rid of this frightening cause of heart attack, fast!
7. Cholesterol Size
Recent studies suggest that cholesterol size could be one of the causes of heart attack as smaller, denser cholesterol molecules can more easily invade the artery wall causing inflammation and atherosclerosis plaque.
The higher the amounts of smaller and denser particles, the higher the risks relative to larger cholesterol particles.
This factor alone could increase the risk of heart attack by as much as 54%.
8. Microvascular Disease
Heart attack also can occur due to problems with the very small, microscopic blood vessels of your heart. This condition is known as microvascular disease. It’s believed to be more common in women than in men.
9. Severe Spasm (Tightening) Of A Coronary Artery
When this happens, it cuts off blood flow through your artery. The spasm can happen in coronary arteries that don't have coronary artery disease.
Causes of the spasm could be due to:
Drugs, like cocaine
Exposure to extreme cold
Smoking
Emotional stress/pain
10. Abnormal Heart Valves
This can result from disease, infection (endocarditis) or a defect present at birth.
When your heart's valves don't open or close completely during each heartbeat, your heart muscle has to pump harder to keep the blood moving.
If the workload becomes too great, heart failure results.
You could have caused damages to your heart muscle, using either drug or alcohol or because of viral infections or unknown reasons. This increases your risk of heart failure.
12. Other conditions
Sometimes your healthy heart may temporarily unable to function healthily due to:
Low red blood cell count (severe anemia) - With not enough red blood cells to carry oxygen, your heart tries to move the small number of cells at a faster heart rate. It can become overtaxed from the effort
An overactive thyroid gland (hyperthyroidism) - it causes your body to work at a faster pace, and your heart can overwork trying to keep up
Abnormal heart rhythm (arrhythmia or dysrhythmia) - this is when your heart beats too fast, too slow or irregularly, so it may not be able to pump enough blood to meet all your body's needs
The Common Solution
As you go down the list of causes of heart attack, can you constantly see the common solution that jumps out at you?
That the combo of exercise and healthy diet is the "common solution" to most of the causes of heart attack?
This brings me to the subject of prevention.
I'm giving you a very snapshot view of it:
Exercise at least 3-4 times per week for at least 30 minutes per session. Cardio exercise is a must as it works on your heart, strengthening and conditioning it to stronger shape, so that it pumps blood efficiently.
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