Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Matters Of The Heart
The human heart can beat up to 2.5 billion times in an average lifetime. You do not want that heart to stop working properly.
One of the things I learned about my medical history 7 years ago is that my biological family has had deaths relating to heart disease. Since then, I’ve been looking to learn as much as possible about the heart and what can happen to it, what are the symptoms of various types of conditions and diseases as well as preventative maintenance.
The most commonly known heart ailments include heart attacks. What many people aren’t very aware of is Sudden Cardiac Arrest or SCA. This is not the same thing as a heart attack. In heart attacks, also known as myocardial infarction, (MI), the heart doesn’t get blood and it stops working. In SCA, ventricular fibrillation, the heart beats too fast which means it cannot pump the blood effectively or at all. In fact, those who have had heart attacks are more prone to suffer SCA if they had extensive muscle damage.
Did you know that if you suffer from SCA, you have only 4-6 minutes to be treated or you can die? Even scarier than that is that this usually happens with no warning whatsoever and it happens to 900 people a day!
Those who are at risk of a heart attack and SCA are individuals who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a lot of stress, are overweight, smoke, (guilty as charged), don’t get enough exercise and abuse drugs and alcohol. These risks can be fixed or changed. Other risk factors include diabetes, age, (the rate is higher for men than women), previous heart disease and certain medications to name a few.
Heart disease is one of the biggest killers in this country. Even if you lead the healthiest lifestyle and have no family medical history of any type of heart disease, it would still behoove you to learn as much as you can about SCA. If someone suddenly collapses, loses consciousness, has abnormal breathing, or you can’t find a pulse, they may be suffering from SCA and you may be the only person around.
Learn as much as you can about SCA by visiting the St. Jude Medical website linked above. The site is loaded with information and videos. You can even take an online assessment to see if you may be at risk for SCA and bring it in to your physician for further discussion. Knowledge is power and you could save another person’s life or even your own.
