Heart Attack and Chest Pain

HEART ATTACK: MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION No one wants to think about heart attack. It’s the boogey man that causes more deaths worldwide than any other medical condition. In the U.S. alone there are 1.2 million heart attacks every year: somewhere around 25% to 30% end in fatality. Around 20% of people die before they ever reach medical care. So why would we want to think about such a depressing subject? The answer is simple: the more you know, and act on what you know, the less likely you’ll fall victim to this condition. You can start right now on a program to reduce your chances of having a heart attack We have known for many years that smoking causes heart disease and contributes to heart attacks. It seems that the constituents of cigarette smoke damage the intricate and very sensitive cells which line our blood vessels. These “endothelial” cells, of course, line the coronary arteries which deliver blood and oxygen to the individual heart muscle cells and electrical conduction cells. The smoke damages arteries all over the body, making the heart work harder to pump the blood to these other arteries. The harder pumping can lead to high blood pressure which in and of itself damages the heart. It’s like a cycle of one bad thing causing another then working its way around again to cause further bad effects.