Heart Attack Prevention
Since specific weaknesses are often genetic, it seems like there’s nothing you can do to prevent a problem. However, in a heart attack, you don’t have to find new parents because you can do things for heart attack prevention. Simple lifestyle changes offer you methods to reduce your risk of a coronary and improve your life.
Avoid Fatty Foods
Fried foods and foods saturated with bad cholesterol fats clog your arteries and increase your chances of a heart attack. A heart attack comes from insufficient blood flow to the heart via the coronary artery. If there’s a plug of plaque from excess cholesterol, your heart won’t receive the amount of blood necessary to continue functioning. Simply eliminating bad fat, the type that increases your LDL, low-density lipids, and substituting good fat, those with HDL, high-density lipids helps you improved your cholesterol profile. In addition, some foods contain omega-3 fatty acids that help lower bad cholesterol. These are in walnuts, flaxseed, soybean oil, fish, canola oil and olive oil.
Eat Whole Grains, Fruits and Vegetables
Whole grain products, fruits and vegetables provide soluble fiber to the diet. Soluble fiber helps usher out the bad cholesterol before your body absorbs it. It also helps you prevent some colon diseases and prevents constipation.
Stop Smoking
Everything you read and hear indicates smokers not only damage their health but are the pariah of society. Part of this is true. Smoking causes more plaque to develop on the lining of the arteries. It comes from the impurities in cigarette smoke. So not only does smoking cause heart attacks, but it’s also a leading cause of strokes.
Exercise for Heart Attack Prevention
Exercise has so many benefits they’re hard to list. Cardiovascular exercise increases the strength of the heart muscle. The improved blood flow enjoyed when exercising helps flush the blood vessels. Exercise reduces stress, increases the ability to sleep, helps lose weight and gives the person a better outlook on life. Be aware, however, of too much of a good thing too soon. If you start any exercise program, always check with your doctor and begin with moderation. Many programs fail because of aches and pains the following day. Too much exercise at one time also can create conditions conducive to a heart attack.
Lose Weight to Prevent a Heart Attack
Excess weight is also a leading problem when it comes to heart attacks. On the other hand, weight loss improves blood pressure, often helps diabetics control their sugar level and helps control cholesterol levels.
Spice Up Your Meals for Heart Attack Prevention
Adding spices to cooking increases not only the flavor but also provides additional benefits. Many spices have phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals that improve your heart health. Basil, for instance, helps the blood vessels with the anti-oxidant vitamin A and the magnesium it contains relaxes to vessels to improve blood flow. Spices also reduce the need for salt, a very unhealthy flavoring when used in excess. The best benefit from including herbs and spices in your dishes is the additional nutrition with the addition of minimal or no extra calories.
How to prevent a heart attack?
Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in America. For people over 65, the risk of heart disease rises significantly. While those statistics may be frightening, many simple strategies can greatly reduce the risk.
Whether you are already at risk for a heart attack or are simply concerned about your general health, heart attack prevention may mean a significant lifestyle change. You can learn how to prevent a heart attack and stop a heart attack if you feel the symptoms coming on.
What are the symptoms of a heart attack?
Learning how to prevent a heart attack begins with understanding the symptoms. Some common signs include:
- Persistent fatigue
- Chest pain
- Shortness of breath
- Heart palpitations
- Coughing up blood, or a prolonged, unexplained cough
- Swelling in the legs
- A bluish tinge to the skin (known as cyanosis)
While the above are some of the most common symptoms, sometimes the signs aren’t as obvious. For example, heart attack pain can often be brushed off as heartburn or a minor chest pain. Even if you have already had a heart attack, the symptoms may differ the second time around. With heart disease, it’s better to be safe than sorry. If you are experiencing one or more of these signs, contact your doctor immediately.
Eat a healthy “heart-smart” diet
If you want to prevent a heart attack, one of the best advice is to stick to a heart-smart diet. That may mean drastically changing what you eat, but cutting out certain foods can greatly reduce your heart attack risk. Here are some tips on eating a heart-smart diet:
- Limit unhealthy fats and cholesterol.
- Stick to lean or low-fat proteins.
- Bring on the fruit and vegetables!
- Choose whole-grains.
- Reduce sodium in your diet.
These are just some basic tips. Then, talk to your doctor about preventing heart attack and the best diet for your particular condition.
Don’t smoke
Many people want to prevent a heart attack, yet they continue to smoke tobacco. Tobacco is a main contributor to heart disease. It damages the heart and blood vessels, leading to atherosclerosis.
By quitting smoking, you can significantly reduce your risk of heart disease within just one year. And the best news is, even if you’ve been smoking for years, you will begin to benefit almost immediately once you quit.
Get regular exercise
This is another prime tip on how to prevent heart attacks. If you can get a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise every day, you can reduce your risk of heart disease. Physical activity combined with a heart healthy diet and lifestyle can do wonders to protect your heart and keep it healthy.
Even if you don’t have time for a full 60 minutes of exercise, in the beginning, start smaller and work your way up. Even a few minutes of daily exercise, increased over time, should help control your weight and reduce stress – both of which are prime factors in heart health.
Stick to a healthy weight
Carrying around excess weight may lead to high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and diabetes – which can greatly increase your chance of heart disease. However, losing even a little can be very beneficial if you’re carrying a few too many pounds. Reducing your body weight by only 10% can bring your blood pressure down, lower your cholesterol, and lower your risk of heart disease.
Go for a check-up
Many people fail to get regular health screenings, and they are oblivious to the risks for heart disease until they are in the emergency room with heart pains. Likewise, you won’t know your risk factor unless you are regularly checking up on your health. By making an appointment with your doctor regularly, you can be aware of your risks and know better how to prevent heart attacks.
Have an emergency plan in place
If you do have a heart attack, it’s vital to have an emergency plan in place. Even with a healthy lifestyle, you may still experience heart attack symptoms. Talk with your physician and with your family so that you can get the help you need quickly.
Fast action can be your best chance of stopping a heart attack. Treatments and medications are available, but they need to be given immediately after symptoms begin, so don’t delay getting medical care. The sooner your treatment is started, the more effective it may be – and the greater your chance will be for a full recovery.
By caring for your heart and living a healthy lifestyle, and by putting some emergency precautions in place, you can keep your ticker ticking for a long time to come.
How to Stop a Heart Attack: Programs, Medications and Treatments
Heart attack is one of the most dangerous medical conditions that often result in death. A heart attack is also referred to as myocardial infarction or MI. This medical condition occurs when waxy substances made of cholesterol or fats and fibrin cause a blockage in the arteries or the blood vessels of the heart. When this happens, the blood containing the required oxygen and nutrients cannot pass through and from the heart, depriving the heart of oxygen, thus diminishing the ability of the heart to pump the blood to the rest of the body.
Most people at risk of heart attack often do not know when and how to determine if they are suffering from one. One possible reason for this is that a heart attack’s signs and symptoms vary widely from chest pains, angina, discomfort, nausea, dizziness, and others. This is why knowing how to stop a heart attack and prevent it from happening is very important, especially to those who have a family medical history of this condition. In addition, understanding how a heart attack occurs can prove to be useful in saving your life and the lives of people around you who are also at risk of dying from this disease.
Early Diagnosis: Help Stop a Heart Attack
One way to stop a heart attack from happening is to have your cardiologist provide you a diagnosis as early as possible. Your primary physician will take and review your complete medical history. This includes a thorough description of the symptoms you are experiencing. You will also be required to undergo a physical exam to determine how healthy you are and if you are at risk of suffering from a cardiac arrest or a heart attack.
Your cardiologist will also perform an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) on you to be able to find factors that may suggest a possible heart attack. Other diagnosis methods include blood tests used to check the heart for any muscle damage and chest X-rays.
Initial Treatments to Stop a Heart Attack
Your primary doctor may recommend several medications and treatments to prevent or stop a heart attack from happening. Medications include nitrates such as sublingual nitroglycerin, pain medication, aspirin and medication. Sublingual nitroglycerin is a medication that is taken by placing it under your tongue. Morphine is one of the pain medications that help prevent a heart attack from happening.
Thrombolytic therapy is also one of the most commonly used treatments to stop a heart attack. This process lyses the thrombus in patients who are suffering from myocardial infarction. This therapy aims to dissolve any coronary thrombus that may be blocking the passageway of the blood flow. Once the procedure successfully dissolves any plaque build-up, the oxygenated blood can pass to and from the heart as quickly as it can. The objective of this early intervention in preventing a heart attack is to limit the size of the infarction, preserve the function of the left ventricle, help stop pump failure from happening, and help prevent the patient’s death.
Prevention Measures that Help Stop a Heart Attack
Recent studies show that taking aspirin daily decreases the risk of a person suffering from a stroke or a heart attack. This is due to the drug’s anticoagulant properties that help reduce blood clotting in the major arteries. However, some medications may have side effects on other underlying medical ailments, so you must discuss this aspirin therapy with your doctor first before beginning it to ensure that it would not cause any harm.
People who are at risk of suffering from a cardiac arrest should know the steps they can take to stop a heart attack from happening. One thing they can do on their own is to perform regular physical activities such as daily exercises. The cardiovascular benefits of doing regular exercises are the decreased risk of blood clots forming, a better oxygen use of the muscles, a greatly improved and better cholesterol profile, greater artery dilation, especially during periods where strength is exerted, a lower blood pressure, lower heart rate as well a greater blood volume being pumped to the other parts of the body with each heartbeat.
Programs on How to Stop a Heart Attack
There are many things that people can do to stop a heart attack from happening. They must understand that it is essential to start slowly and easily to avoid overexerting their heart. For the first week of your exercise regimen, make sure you perform your physical activities without going beyond twenty minutes. Building up your heart strength should be done gradually. It is a general rule that you should not increase the duration, frequency, and intensity of your exercise by more than ten percent weekly.
Exercising regularly is one of the ways on how to stop a heart attack. However, patients at risk of having cardiac arrests should know that overexerting increases their risks. Warming up before performing a physical exertion should always be done to help boost the circulation of your heart muscle. In addition, make sure that you let your heart muscle cool down gradually after exercising to ensure that the blood supply of your heart will not drop down suddenly.
Different types of Medical Treatment for Cardiovascular Disease
The term cardiovascular disease refers to a huge number of different medical conditions, disorders, and diseases that affect the heart and some major blood vessels. These include dysfunctional vein conditions, arterial disorders, and heart conditions. Medical conditions that affect the major blood vessels and the heart are often life-threatening. In fact, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, cardiovascular disease is considered the top cause of death in both men and women in the United States. However, throughout the years, more and more therapies and treatments for cardiovascular disease have been used effectively in preventing these deaths.
Types of Cardiovascular Diseases
Treatment for cardiovascular disease is used in treating angina, atherosclerosis, cardiac arrhythmias, congenital heart defects, infections of the heart, cardiomyopathy, heart valve disorders, pericarditis, myocarditis, heart attack or myocardial infarction, and coronary heart disease. The signs and symptoms that patients with heart diseases differ depending on the specific kind of disease they are afflicted with. One of the most common symptoms of cardiovascular diseases is chest pain or chest discomfort. Yet, there are still some forms of heart diseases wherein symptoms may not appear until dangerous complications develop.
Medical Treatment
Medical treatment for cardiovascular disease can begin immediately for patients with heart disease, even before a cardiologist will provide a definite diagnosis. General medical treatment for heart diseases includes nitroglycerin, morphine, meperidine, aspirin, and oxygen provided through a face mask or a tube inserted in the nose. In addition, medicines used to dissolve clots and build-ups are also general medical treatments for people suffering from heart diseases. The earlier the patient will be provided with first aid medical treatment, the better their chances of recovering from their ailments.
Angioplasty Surgery
Angioplasty surgery is a type of medical procedure that is the recommended surgical treatment for cardiovascular disease. This procedure is one of the most performed surgeries of the heart, which destroys and relieves any build-up and blockage in the walls of the coronary arteries. Coronary balloon angioplasties and emergency coronary angiography are available in most hospitals that have a fully equipped cardiac catheterization laboratory. A patient with coronary heart disease or coronary artery disease undergoes this type of surgery wherein a thin catheter is inserted through a groin, the arm, or an artery.
A very small elongated balloon is located on the tip of the catheter. It is threaded over an extremely thin wire used as a guide to accessing the blocked coronary artery. Once the catheter reaches the affected site of the artery, it is then inflated to destroy the plaque build-up. Once the balloon successfully eliminates the clotting in the affected area, the blood carrying the necessary oxygen and nutrients can normally circulate and pass through again. The procedure will be completed once the balloon is deflated and removed through the use of the catheter.
Cardiovascular Stenting and Atherectomy
Stenting and atherectomy are the other types of treatment for cardiovascular disease. A stent is a tiny device inserted into an affected coronary artery after a patient undergoes balloon angioplasty surgery. Once the balloon is removed through the catheter, the stent is inserted to ensure that the artery remains clot-free and block-free. In addition, stenting makes the angioplasty surgery more effective since the device used will keep the coronary artery from narrowing once more.
Suppose the plaque build-ups are too calcified, bulky or rigid to be treated alone with balloon angioplasty surgery. In that case, atherectomy is used by surgeons to remove these clotting and blockages. This type of treatment for cardiovascular disease uses several devices such as a laser or a rotary blade to cut out the plaque from the coronary arteries to let the blood flow circulate normally and smoothly.
Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting
Coronary artery bypass grafting is the most recommended treatment for cardiovascular disease for patients with severe heart diseases. This medical procedure is performed if the patient’s cardiologist determines that many coronary arteries are blocked and are affected. This surgery is mostly recommended if the left coronary artery appears to have a severe blockage. The coronary artery bypass graft is open-heart surgery, meaning that for the procedure to be performed, the patient’s chest wall is opened.
Cardiac surgeons can remove sections from the patient’s mammary artery or veins located on the patient’s legs to make detours for the blood to flow around the affected arteries. In addition, some patients are often hooked to a bypass pump that will be responsible for the functions of the heart while it is stopped during the surgery. Many people may think that this type of surgery is very dangerous, but this medical procedure is actually very safe and has low-risk factors as well.
Off-Pump Bypass Surgery
Off-pump bypass surgery is another type of treatment for cardiovascular disease similar to coronary artery bypass surgery. However, this medical procedure does not require a bypass machine. Some patients with heart disease are at risk for complications if connected to a bypass machine. Off-pump bypass surgery has fewer risks for complications. However, this type of treatment is not feasible and is less used as a type of treatment for patients who suffer from heart diseases.
Disclaimer: This Website is for information purposes only. You should consult your physician for correct diagnosis and treatment.
