• Question: What causes heart attacks? What can increase your risk of getting one?

    Asked by olivia13 to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 18 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Karen Reed

      Karen Reed answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      Hiya olica13,
      Our hearts are a muscle which needs a good blood supply to bring in the required oxygen to allow the muscle to contract and work. In a heart attack the blood supply to part of the heart stops, starving the heart muscle of oxygen and causing damage to the heart tissue. Usually the reason the blood supply to the hear stops is because the blood vessels that take the blood to the heart get blocked by a blood clot. This is more likely to happen if the blood vessles to the heart get fured up on the inside by a fatty material and then become narrowed.
      Living an un healthy lifestyle – eating lots of saturated fats and unhealthy foods, not geting enough exercise, somking, being over-weight are all things that increase your chances of having a heart attack.
      Hope that helps – let me know if you want to know more

Comments

  • Photo: Austin

    Austin commented on :

    Luckily, there are quite good ways to prevent heart attacks these days, and to treat them when they happen. As Karen says, eating a healthy diet, taking regular exercise, not being/getting overweight and (especially) not smoking are all good preventive measures that everybody can take. For people who are especially at risk, there are also prescription drugs called statins (sometimes used when people have problems with cholesterol and fat levels in their blood) and low-dose aspirin and other drugs that help prevent blood clots forming.

    If someone actually has a heart attack, the main thing is to get them treated quickly, which usually means getting them to hospital as fast as possible. CPR in the meantime is important if someone’s heart has stopped, which is why we have public information films to try and teach people the basics of CPR, and why it’s in first aid courses. Once in hospital there are ways to open up the blocked artery in the heart, either with a clot-busting drug or by ‘rodding out’ the blocked artery via what is called angioplasty. These have revolutionised the treatment of heart attacks compared to, say, a generation ago. You can find out more about all the drugs or treatments I’ve mentioned on Wikipedia.

  • Photo: olivia13

    olivia13 commented on :

    Thanks Karen and Austin you both really helped me out thanks! I have learnt lot’s from your answers now I know that fat/obease people are more likely to get a heart attack than a healthy person! Thanks again, olivia13. 😀