Heart attack symptoms show up ONE MONTH before they

Heart attack symptoms show up ONE MONTH before they occur, doctors say

Doctors say that middle-aged men,aged 35 to 65 can experience symptoms of a heart attack up to one month before the attack occurs. A new study has concluded that more than half of the men had possible warning signs up to a month before their hearts stopped.

Heart attack symptoms show up ONE MONTH before they Nov21_5

Of those with symptoms, 56 percent had chest pain, 13 percent had shortness of breath and four percent suffered dizziness, fainting or palpitations.

اقتباس :: LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online): When the heart stops due to a failure in its electrical system, it's full-blown cardiac arrest. Patients have a better chance of survival if they receive CPR immediately and a defibrillator is used quickly to shock the heart into a normal rhythm.

Researchers found more than half of the patients examined showed symptoms that could predict cardiac arrest.

Fifty-six percent of test subjects experienced chest pain, 13 percent showed signs of dyspnea, or breathlessness, and four percent reported dizziness, syncope, or loss of consciousness and heart palpitations. Equally troubling is that in 10 percent of cases, patients experienced flu-like symptoms in the run up to their heart attack.

For the study, scientists tested people in 825 cases of sudden cardiac arrest. Less than 10 percent of people who suffer a cardiac arrest outside hospital survive, according to latest figures.

Symptoms of a heart attack include chest pain, chiefly located in the center of the chest. It can feel like a sensation of pressure, tightness or squeezing - or pain in the other parts of the body.

Other symptoms include shortness of breath, feeling sick, being sick, an overwhelming sense of anxiety (similar to having a panic attack) and feeling light-headed.

"By the time rescuers get there, it's much too late," study lead author Doctor Eloi Marijon, a visiting scientist at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in the U.S. warns.

Gathering the symptoms and health history of men 35 to 65-years-old who had out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the Portland area of Oregon between 2002 and 2012, it was found 567 men who had out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, 53 percent had symptoms prior to the cardiac arrest.

Of those with symptoms, 56 percent had chest pain, 13 percent had shortness of breath and four percent suffered dizziness, fainting or palpitations.

"The lesson is, if you have these kinds of symptoms, please don't blow them off," the study's senior author Dr. Sumeet Chugh, associate director for genomic cardiology at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, said. "Go and see your healthcare provider. Don't waste time."