Health Blurbs

When blood flow to a section of your heart muscle becomes blocked this is what’s known as a heart attack. If this blood flow isn’t quickly restored, then that section of your heart muscle begins to die because of this lack of oxygen.

Most often heart attacks occur as a result of a condition called coronary artery disease (CAD). With this disease, fatty material (plaque) builds up inside the walls of your coronary arteries.

Coronary artery plaque can rupture and cause a blood clot to form on the surface of an artery.   This clot can block the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the part of the heart muscle fed by that artery.

If the blockage in the coronary artery isn’t treated quickly, the heart muscle will begin to die and be replaced by scar tissue. This heart damage is not always obvious and it can cause severe, long-lasting problems.

A couple serious problems linked to a heart attack are:

• heart failure
• cardiac arrest
  
• ventricular fibrillation

Heart failure is a condition in which your heart can’t pump enough blood, ventricular fibrillation is a serious arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) and cardiac arrest is when your heart stops beating.

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