Facts About Heart Attacks
By Bobby Gill

Facts About Heart Attacks

Introduction

The internet provides the quickest access to facts about heart attacks. Below are random internet searches for facts.

According to the American Heart Association, more than 3 million American women have a history of heart attack.

1.5 million heart attacks occur in the United States each year with 500,000 deaths.

A heart attack is an event that results in permanent heart damage or death.

More than 233,000 women die annually from cardiovascular disease.

A heart attack occurs when one of the coronary arteries becomes severely or totally blocked, usually by a blood clot.

A heart attack occurs about every 20 seconds with a heart attack death about every minute.

When the heart muscle does not receive the oxygen-rich blood that it needs, it begins to die.

The severity of a heart attack usually depends on how much of the heart muscle is injured or dies during the attack.

According to the National Institutes of Health, women are more likely to have a greater number of risk factors for heart attacks than men.

Sudden death is more common among women with heart attack.

In general, heart attacks are deadlier to women at any age than they are to men.

The National Registry of Myocardial Infarctions (New England Journal Med., 22Jul99) reports that women have a worse outcome than men after having a heart attack. Data showed that women under the age of 50 had twice the mortality of men after having a heart attack. Variances likely reflect increased severity of the disease in younger women.

Compared with male heart attack patients, women are usually about 10 years older at the time of their first attack.

Almost 14 million Americans have a history of heart attack or angina.

Up to 25 percent of heart attacks do not cause symptoms. These are known as silent heart attacks. Most attacks, though, do produce symptoms, which are often severe and frightening.

About 50% of deaths occur within one hour of the heart attack ––outside a hospital.

Diagnosing heart attacks can be more difficult in women than men because women tend to have less-typical heart attack symptoms.

There is a 6% to 9% early mortality from heart attack for those who survive long enough to reach the hospital.

During a heart attack, women are less likely than men to feel severe chest pain typically associated with a heart attack (such as a tightening of the chest) and are more likely to report a feeling of severe heartburn in the upper abdomen or pain in the breast.

From 1983 to 1993, heart attack deaths fell about 30% overall but have not fallen nearly as much for women.

Women experiencing a heart attack may feel pain in the back, neck or jaw.

Studies show the most common time for a heart attack to occur is Monday morning. Saturday morning ranks second. Another common time is during the early morning hours, when blood platelets are stickier.

Women have reported symptoms of unusual fatigue, sleep disturbances, shortness of breath, indigestion and anxiety in the weeks leading up to their heart attack.

Deaths from cardiovascular diseases in women exceed the total number of deaths caused by the next 16 causes.

Your chance of surviving a heart attack depends largely on the treatment that is given within the first hour after the heart attack.

60% of women erroneously listed cancer as the leading cause of death among women. Deaths from all cancers in the USA are half as common as deaths from cardiovascular disease.

People suffering a heart attack should always receive immediate professional emergency medical intervention.

Only 31% of women know that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the USA

While waiting for help to arrive or on the way to the hospital, people who are having a heart attack are often told to begin chewing aspirin, which inhibits the formation of blood clots. It is thought that taking aspirin while experiencing a heart attack can decrease the risk of death by about 25 percent.

On the average, women take 2-4 hours longer than men to respond to symptoms of heart attack, limiting the beneficial use of some newer treatments like clot busters that work best within the first hour after onset of pain or discomfort.

After a heart attack, you will need from two weeks to more than six weeks of recovery time, depending on the severity of the attack.

Chewing an uncoated aspirin right away, at the first sign of chest discomfort or distress, can reduce the amount of damage to the heart muscle during a heart attack.

Cardiac rehabilitation programs are strongly recommended to help people who have had a heart attack get back on their feet quickly and safely.

Costs related to heart attack exceed 60 billion dollars per year.

Conclusion

You can get facts about heart attacks very easily via an internet search (Google and other search engines). What you do with these facts is most important. If you have any symptom of a heart attack, do not take a chance - get emergency medical assistance immediately. The time saved just might save your life.