People experience heart attacks or myocardial infarction when their blood is hindered or blocked from flowing within their heart muscles. Typically, atherosclerosis causes this health condition when cholesterol, fat, and other substances accumulate in the coronary arteries. From there, these substances risk rupturing, forming clots in the heart, and blocking blood flow. As a result, this lack of blood flow damages the heart muscle, leading to severe or fatal consequences.
Understanding Heart Attacks
Although heart attacks have mild and severe symptoms, individuals can show no symptoms at all. However, those who show symptoms tend to have chest pains that can feel like tightness, squeezing, or pressure in their chest. Not only can this discomfort affect their chest, but their shoulders, back, arms, neck, teeth, upper belly, and jaw can also be impacted. Additionally, these individuals may struggle with cold sweats, heartburn, fatigue, breathing difficulties, lightheadedness, nausea, and indigestion.
For women, in particular, experiencing sharp or brief pain in their arms, back, or neck is common. Individuals who struggle with angina or recurring pain in their chest should seek medical help immediately especially if their pain persists despite resting. Angina is also a health condition that may signal a heart attack is about to happen.
Causes
The main reason why people have heart attacks is due to coronary artery disease, which occurs when plaques, containing cholesterol, block one, a few, or all the coronary arteries. When either a partial or complete blockage of the coronary artery happens, heart attacks can occur. Depending on the results following an electrocardiogram (ECG), a doctor can determine if they’re ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) or non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI).
While STEMI may indicate total blockages of medium-sized or large-sized coronary arteries, NSTEMI focuses on partial blockages. However, most cases of heart attacks tend to involve a complete artery blockage. What’s more? Heart attacks have other causes besides blocked arteries such as COVID-19 or similar infections. Additionally, coronary artery spasms, also known as vasospastic, variant, or Prinzmetal’s angina, can be a major factor too. In particular, these spasms occur due to severe squeezing of the arteries. Moreover, this condition impacts people by causing a fatal tear within an artery, which is known as spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD).
Risk Factors
People’s susceptibility to heart attacks increases as they age, specifically for men over 45 and women over 55. Additionally, using tobacco by smoking or secondhand exposure also increases one’s risk. Those who have high blood pressure, diabetes, or high triglycerides and cholesterol are in danger of having heart attacks. Likewise, people who are obese have a higher risk of having this health condition too. When these factors are combined with metabolic syndrome, individuals are twice as likely to have heart disease.
Furthermore, following unhealthy diet plans consisting of animal fats, processed foods, and sugars or being inactive are also contributors to the disease. Other factors like illegal drug use, emotional stress, and medical conditions such as autoimmune disorders or preeclampsia can increase one’s chances as well.
Complications Following Heart Attacks
Since heart attacks damage the heart muscle, people can experience various complications including irregular heart rhythms. This complication is called arrhythmias and occurs when electrical signals in the heart are disrupted. Moreover, individuals can get the rare condition, cardiogenic shock, where the heart’s ability to pump blood fails. Extensive damage caused by heart attacks can turn into temporary or chronic heart failure, which also hinders the heart from pumping blood.
Furthermore, pericarditis or inflammation in the heart and surrounding tissue can arise. An abnormal immune response, called Dressler syndrome, usually causes this inflammation. Heart attacks can even cause cardiac arrest, resulting in the heart stopping suddenly and without warning. Ultimately, this condition can be life-threatening and requires immediate medical attention to prevent cardiac death.
Life Expectancy
A person’s life expectancy depends on various factors including disease advancement, treatment effectiveness, overall health, and complications experienced. Doctors may rely on scoring systems like Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) and Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) to determine prognosis and placement on the liver transplant list. The test results of one’s liver function create these scores and determine if someone has complications such as hepatic encephalopathy, which indicates decompensated cirrhosis.
Currently, the average life expectancy of an individual in the early stages of compensated cirrhosis can be more than fifteen years. However, this expectancy can decrease due to internal bleeding caused by portal hypertension. On the other hand, decomposed cirrhosis has a life expectancy of seven years. If an individual has other untreatable severe diseases or complications, this timeline may accelerate and drop the expectancy rate to two years or even lower.
Final Thoughts
Making healthy lifestyle choices is the best way to prevent heart attacks even if one already happened. Consuming heart-healthy foods and regularly exercising can help an individual maintain a good weight and live a good life at the same time. Managing stress and any underlying condition can reduce one’s risk too. People seeking information, worried, or who’ve had heart attacks in the past should talk to their doctors to get their questions answered or be prescribed medication to protect themselves. For others experiencing heart attacks, learning about CPR, first-aid, and how to use an automated external defibrillator (AED) correctly can assist them as well.
Disclaimer: This article is intended simply to provide information. It does not replace the medical advice of a physician or other medical professional. Please speak with your doctor or therapist if you have any questions or concerns.
