Not all heart attacks are accompanied by chest pain and sweating. New scientific data suggest that there are hidden heart attacks in which the symptoms are slight or absent. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health in new York took 1,800 people over 45 years old with a healthy heart and examined them. 8% had symptoms of scar tissue – damaged tissue on the heart. Most of the surveyed did not know about it, although half of the cases the picture looked typical for a heart attack, writes headinsider.net.
“In some cases, patients have experienced minor symptoms, which are considered insufficient to treatment to the doctor,” says study author David Bluemke, Director of the Department of radiology clinical center National Institutes of Health. According to him, among these symptoms were mild chest pain, nausea, vomiting, fatigue without a specific cause, heartburn, shortness of breath, discomfort in the neck or jaw.
Yeah, so it turns out that a heart attack may pass as slight indigestion. But unlike the gastric problems that are simple, heart attack leaves scars on the heart. And this, in turn, says Blumke, can lead to arrhythmias. Your heart may beat too quickly, because it does not effectively pump blood. And the worst thing — this can lead to sudden cardiac arrest.
So what do you do? Closely monitor the symptoms. Young and healthy guys do not worry, according to Blumke. But if you’re over 50 (or 40 if there is a family history of heart disease) or are at risk due to their weight, blood pressure, diabetes or Smoking, you should immediately consult a doctor if symptoms do not disappear in 20 minutes or increase during exercise.
Even without symptoms do not forget about the annual survey. The fact that the scars are formed not only during a heart attack: high blood pressure, diabetes, being overweight and Smoking can also cause damage to your main muscle. One study showed that 70% of deaths from heart attacks had scars on the heart even before the attack. Therefore, early recognition of heart disease is so important. Ask your doctor to give you a CT scan for analysis of calcium deposits or CT angiogram. Thus it is possible to detect the formation of plaques at a very early stage.
