Heart attack happens when the flow of oxygen-rich blood to a section of heart muscle suddenly becomes blocked and the heart can’t get oxygen. If blood flow isn’t restored quickly, the section of heart muscle begins to die.

Many people aren't sure what's wrong when they are having symptoms of a heart attack. Some of the most common warning symptoms of a heart attack for both men and women are:

• Chest pain or discomfort. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center or left side of the chest. The discomfort usually lasts more than a few minutes or goes away and comes back. It can feel like pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain. It also can feel like heartburn or indigestion.
• Upper body discomfort. You may feel pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, shoulders, neck, jaw, or upper part of the stomach (above the belly button).
• Shortness of breath. This may be your only symptom, or it may occur before or along with chest pain or discomfort. It can occur when you are resting or doing a little bit of physical activity.

Other possible symptoms of a heart attack include:

• Breaking out in a cold sweat
• Feeling unusually tired for no reason, sometimes for days (especially if you are a woman)
• Nausea (feeling sick to the stomach) and vomiting
• Light-headedness or sudden dizziness
• Any sudden, new symptom or a change in the pattern of symptoms you already have (for example, if your symptoms become stronger or last longer than usual)

Not all heart attacks begin with the sudden, crushing chest pain that often is shown on TV or in the movies, or other common symptoms such as chest discomfort. The symptoms of a heart attack can vary from person to person. Some people can have few symptoms and are surprised to learn they've had a heart attack.

Thanks Dr. Dheeraj to give crucial knowledge about heart attack.

Many of the case I have treated/evaluated are from 1) coronary artery blockages (cholesterol mixed with tobacco mixed with some other medical issues and some genetics). 2) hypercoaguable state of the blood where blood clots form. 3) bridging of a coronary artery by the muscle of the heart. 4) structural problems with the heart - example: solitary coronary artery. 5) infection of the heart muscle and 6) defects of the heart muscle. Mostly those are the ones I have seen/treated.

What should be done to get a healthy heart?

I think stressful life and junk food are major caused for heart disease.

The risk factors for cardiovascular disease are known, and the SCORE risk chart, based on six and a quarter million person-years of data, shows you how they interact.

https://www.escardio.org/Education/Practice-Tools/CVD-prevention-toolbox/SCORE-Risk-Charts

Thank you Dr. Ronan for providing very important and beneficial score chart..

Heart attack occur due to reduced supply of nutrients and oxygen to the heart mostly from coronay artery dieases. Thrombo-embolism, atherosclerosis among others are highly implicated. Control or awareness of the risk factors are imperative for prebention.

What are the main reasons of Heart attack?

Answer:

- Smoking

- Diabetes Mellitus

- Abdominal obesity as it secrets hormones Leptin and Resistin (Resist Insulin) that cause atherosclerosis, hypertension, diabetes, increase thrombogenicity.

- Hypertension

- Heredity (important risk factor)

- Increased blood levels of Cholesterol, low density lipoprotein and also triglycerides.

- Stress acute or chronic that is above limits.

- Sedentary life (no walking)

- Age

- Previous coronary disease or infarction is risk for another attack.

Samir Rafla – we all assume that stress is a factor in CVD, but look at this very large study:

Article Psychosocial stress and major cardiovascular events in patie...

The authors report that:

Amongst those reporting feeling stress at work sometimes, often or always, the risk was lower for CV death, all‐cause death and the primary composite end‐point compared to not feeling stress at work (Table 3, Fig. 1). There were no associations observed between levels of work‐related stress and the risk of MI, stroke or hospitalization for heart failure (Table S2). Stress at home was not significantly related to any outcome (data not shown).

That's right. Those with the higher work stress ratings had lower rates of CV and all-cause mortality. And home-related stress wasn't related to anything.

And this was a prospective study of almost 15,000 high-risk participants.

Heart attack occurs when there is a supply demand mismatch. What ever the cause is it will be either decrease in oxygen and nutrients supply to the cardiac muscle or increase in the demand.

acute obstruction of coronary artery and ventricular arrytmias

I did my MD-PhD thesis on the subject a long time ago. Mainly on the problem of bllod supply (and oxygen and nutrients) at the microcirculatory scale. What ever is the cause of a bad blood supply, the hematocrit is a very common trouble generator. The more it is elevated the more AMI will occur and will be difficult to handle. Go back to the Framingham study, it gives a nice explanation on on the factors involved.

I think these factor is so important deal with heart attack: Family history or heredity, cigarette smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

Thanks Dr. Mehdizadeh

main reason is lesser physical activity, more stress on mind

The greatest cause of MIs is thrombus in an epicardial coronary artery. The greatest cause of such thrombus (in a native, non-stented segment of a coronary artery) is the rupture of an atherosclerotic plaque, where lipid-rich contents suddenly spill into the artery's lumen. Many factors are associated with the build-up of 'vulnerable' atherosclerotic plaques, as mentioned often above and in the atherosclerosis literature. These plaques sometimes worsen, or at other times stabilize and/or regress (perhaps due to treatment with drugs and/or lifestyle modifications).

These risk factors are just that ... risk factors. Some risk factors, like one's genetics, are non-modifiable by lifestyle, diet, drugs, or other 'treatments', Other risk factors are at least potentially modifiable in therapy-compliant patients.

Other "heart attacks" may result from abnormalities in the cardiac electrical system (historically less frequently) that devolve into lethal arrhythmias and/or low-flow states.

First factor is inflammation as in patients with diabetes, rheumatoid, systemic lupus and other inflammatory diseases, hypertension, next factor is smoking, third is hyperlipidemia, fourth is genetic predisposition, then abdominal obesity, sedentary life, excessive stress, age, male gender, previous infarction is counted as risk factor.