Heart Attack

Heart Disease (Coronary Artery Disease) Slideshow

• Heart Attack Overview
• Heart Attack Causes
• Heart Attack Risk Factors
• Heart Attack Symptoms
• When to Seek Medical Care
• Exams and Tests
• Heart Attack Treatment
  • Self-Care at Home
  • Emergency Medical Treatment
• Follow-Up
• Prevention
• For More Information
• Synonyms and Keywords
• Authors and Editors
• Related heart attack articles:
  Heart attack - on WebMD
  Heart attack - on MedicineNet

How Up-To-Date is Your Doc? New Heart Attack Guidelines Medical Author: Benjamin C. Wedro, MD, FAAEM Medical Editor: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD Every year the rules change. The one constant about sports is that during the off season and sometimes during the year, the commissioner, the president, or the owners will sit down and tinker with the way the game is played. Doesn't matter which sport, it happens to all of them. The referees and players get updates and adapt their play to the new rules. Ever diligent, the fan follows along, learns, and adapts to the changes. How else can the referee or umpire be second-guessed, except by those who really care about the game? But the rules change for the world outside sports as well, and never more frequently or dramatically than in medicine. Every aspect of medicine from diagnosis to treatment, medications to technology, is exposed to newer and potentially better ways of doing things. Heart attack is a good example of what was - and what is. Twenty-five years ago the treatment for a myocardial infarction or heart attack was hospitalization for two or three weeks followed by a gentle exercise program that limited walking to a few feet per day. Now patients who had bypass surgery are up and walking out of the hospital in four or five days. Read more about the how your doctor keeps informed. » Top Searched Heart Attack Terms: heart attack symptoms, heart attacks in women, heart attack risk factors, heart attack causes, heart attack prevention, heart attack treatment, warning signs

Heart Attack Overview

If you believe that you are having the symptoms of a heart attack, please call 911 immediately.

The heart is a muscle like any other in the body. It needs blood flow to supply oxygen to allow it to do work. When there isn't enough oxygen, the muscle starts to suffer, and when there is no oxygen, the muscle starts to die.

Heart muscle gets its blood supply from arteries that start in the aorta and run on the surface of the heart, known as the coronary arteries. The right coronary artery supplies the right ventricle of the heart and the inferior (lower) portion of the left ventricle. The left anterior descending coronary artery supplies the majority of the left ventricle, while the circumflex artery supplies the back of the left ventricle.

Heart Attack Causes

Over time, cholesterol buildup can occur in these blood vessels in the form of plaque. This narrows the artery and can restrict the amount of blood that can flow through it. If the artery becomes too narrow, it cannot supply enough blood to the heart muscle when it becomes stressed. Just like arm muscles that begin to hurt if you lift too much, or legs that ache when you run too fast; the heart muscle will ache if it doesn't get adequate blood supply. This ache is called angina.

If the plaque ruptures, a small blood clot can form within the blood vessel and acutely block the blood flow. When that part of the heart loses its blood supply completely, the muscle dies. This is called a heart attack, or an MI - a myocardial infarction (myo=muscle +cardial=heart; infarction=death due to lack of oxygen).