Heart Attack Causes

Heart Attack Causes

There are few different things that heart attack causes have in common. The primary one, however, is that all these causes put unnecessary strain and stress on the body and the heart. In order to limit your potential for a heart attack it is important to know what the causes are. If you know what causes a heart attack you can develop a plan to eliminate these causes from your life. It may be difficult to eliminate all of the heart attack causes from your life because there are factors at work that you have no control over, such as genetics. However, there are some causes that you can strive to minimize or even eliminate.

One of the most common heart attack causes is stress. If you are a constant worrier who doesn’t get much sleep then you are at a greater risk of having a heart attack. When you are stressed out your body goes into overdrive. This puts unnecessary strain on the heart muscle. Over time, this constant strain on the heart will gradually weaken it. In turn, you may have a heart attack. Good ways to deal with stress include doing something that you enjoy that also has a benefit for the heart. This could include things such as taking a long walk or jumping in the pool to go for a swim. The idea is to take your mind off of what is stressing so that your heart can get a workout in a good way.

Obesity is also one of the major heart attack causes. Becoming obese is directly related to your diet in most cases. If you are putting bad foods into your body you will likely see your weight climb. When this happens you are putting extra pressure on your heart. Your heart must work faster and harder in an effort to carry all of the excess weight around. A poor diet will also contribute to plaque buildup in your arteries. If you have substantial buildup in your arteries then eventually it will stop the blood flow to your heart. Once this happens you will have a heart attack.

Heart attack causes are often things that can be avoided if you decide to take care of yourself both mentally and physically. Making an effort to live more of a stress free lifestyle while also eating healthier can reduce your risk of a heart attack in no time flat.

What Causes Heart Attacks and Heart Failure

Causes of Heart Attacks

We have all heard of heart attacks, this article sheds light on what causes heart attacks. A heart attack has many causes: however one occurs due to lack of oxygen rich blood in the heart coronary arteries are the blood vessels which supply the heart with oxygen and blood, blockage of coronary arteries causes injury to heart muscle.
So what causes heart attacks ?


Atherosclerosis

This is usually a gradual process in which plaques or collections of cholesterol get deposited around artery walls. These plaques harden the artery walls, narrowing the lumen which is the inner channel of the artery. In many people, atherosclerosis can go unnoticed for years, in some cases beginning even from teenage years. The symptoms and health problems do not occur until later on in life when the narrowing of the artery becomes severe. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and diabetes are just some of the things which accelerate atherosclerosis, especially in people with a family history of heart attacks.

Artery Spasm

An artery spasm is caused by constrictions of arteries which prevent oxygen rich blood from reaching the heart. The spasms are often caused by blood clots, fatty acid build ups on the artery wall and blood clots caused by plaque. Though spasms, don’t cause heart attacks each time the artery is affected but an artery spasm can cause permanent heart damage.

Drug Use

Drugs which speed up the cardiovascular system have been known to induce heart attacks. Cocaine usage on a regular basis can cause heart attacks due to the high dosage used to achieve the high. methamphetamine's have also been known to cause heart failure.

Causes of Heart Failure

Heart failure usually occurs after other conditions have weakened and damaged the heart. Over time the heart becomes too weak to perform its duty of pumping blood to the body. The ventricles which are the heart’s pumping chambers become stiff and are unable to properly fill in between the beats. The heart muscle weakens to the point that it cannot pump blood effectively throughout the body. Heart failure begins on the left ventricle. Signs of heart failure include: fatigue, chronic coughing, a rapid/ irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath amongst other symptoms.

Heart disease is a term used to cover conditions such as coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrest, congenital heart diseases and heart attack.The survival rate of cardiac arrest outside hospital is less than 2%. It takes only four to six minutes after a cardiac arrest for a person to experience brain death followed by loss of life.Most heart attacks occur in the morning. Reason being the stress hormones is higher and blood is usually thicker hence harder to pump as one is partially dehydrated.
Heart disease risk factors

Most heart disease risk factors are controllable with simple lifestyle changes. Some of these include: Smoking, unhealthy diets, stress, physical fitness as well as high blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels which is a type of fat found in blood. Uncontrollable risk factors include: a family history of heart disease, age and gender.
Heart problems if left untreated can lead to death.

Having known what causes heart attacks, it is important to consult a doctor in case of any of the above signs.

Left sided heart failure

Left sided heart failure is the term used to describe the incapacity of the left heart to supply tissues with blood. Left heart has two chambers known as left atrium and ventricle, which communicate thorough the mitral valve. The left atrium (the left upper chamber of the heart) receives oxygenated blood from the lungs, through pulmonary veins and this blood will be delivered to left ventricle (the lower left chamber). The whole amount of blood is pumped by left ventricle in the aorta (which is the main artery of the body) and then into the less large arteries that supply all the tissues and organs (kidney, liver, digestive organs, brain, limbs). Imagine blood flowing in the arteries as a liquid passing through a tube (pipe) and all the factors and interactions between them, which have great influence on the amount of blood that in the end each tissue will get and also the influence on the whole organism: e.g. blood consistency (a viscous blood will allow clots to appear), pressure that blood develops on arterial wall, the influence of arterial walls pressure on blood flow etc.

What is the cause for left sided heart failure?

Left sided heart failure is caused by different pathologies:

• congenital heart diseases,
• heart attack (the ischemia determines cardiac cells to die and a part of the heart is no longer functional),
• coronary heart disease (a chronic ischemia of the heart tissue, a chronic deprivation of oxygen will determine tissues changes in order to adapt to the new condition and in the end cardiomyopathy and left sided heart failure)
• high blood pressure forces the left heart to increase its labor and force, and the only way this can be possible is to increase number of muscle fibers (but the numbers of vessels will remain unchanged, so the same number of vessels will supply a larger number of muscle fibers, which will determine heart ischemia with all the consequences that result from this condition) and increase inside pressure (this pressure will act on heart walls to and will press the vessels which won’t be able to fill enough and this will lead to ischemia)
• another cause of left sided heart failure is heart valves pathology: leaking valves (an amount of blood remains in the heart chambers creating a blood deficit in the tissues and forcing heart, at the next contraction, to throw in the aorta a larger amount of blood, this means a greater labor, which in time will lead to left sided heart failure) or narrow valves (the heart muscle must defeat the obstacle represented by the narrow valves),
• heart muscle infection will determine cardiomyopathy and left sided heart failure,
• excessive alcohol consumption will determine dilated cardiomyopathy and left sided heart failure,
• thyroid dysfunctions,
• heart muscle disorders,
• major cardiac arrhythmia (irregular heart beats).

What happens in the systemic blood circulation, when there is a left sided heart failure?

Left sided heart failure

Compromise of left ventricular function will result in poor systemic circulation: muscle weakness, cool extremities, fatigue, low tolerance to effort, fainting, chest pain, palpitations, rapid heart beats, dizziness, confusion, memory impairment. Backward failure of left ventricle results in pulmonary congestion (blood will remain in the pulmonary veins creating a great pressure and determining shortness of breath, first on exertion and then at rest), hypoxemia (low level of oxygen in the blood), cyanosis (blue coloring of the extremities, because of the hypoxemia), tachypnea (increased rate of breathing), pulmonary edema (because of the great pressure in the pulmonary veins, the fluid from the blood will go through veins walls into the lung). Valvular heart disease may occur due to the increased pressures in heart chambers and pulmonary veins. Another symptom of left sided heart failure is paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea (sudden and severe breathlessness attack during night, several hours after going to sleep).
If you have signs of left sided heart failure please call an MD for medical advice.