People who have been laid off from their job have a lot of things to worry about, and the results of a 2006 study conducted by a group of epidemiologists at Yale University found that when older workers join the ranks of the unemployed, their risk of heart attack and serious stroke doubled. Chronic stress is to blame for the health issues, as well as unhealthy lifestyle choices that can result when someone is faced with a layoff. Stress resulting from a negative life event, such as a job loss, can trigger a heart attack in some people. Chemicals released into the body when it is under acute st...

Many of us have had our hearts broken when love doesn’t work out the way we had hoped. Broken Heart Syndrome, also known as “stress cardiomyopathy,” is a very real medical condition that can resemble a heart attack. Broken Heart Syndrome Defined Broken Heart Syndrome is a condition that is caused by a surge of adrenalin and other hormones in the body. It occurs when a person is under extreme stress, which causes the heart muscle to weaken. The left ventricle, which is the pumping chamber of the heart, stops contracting in a normal manner. Doctors treating patients who have be...

When you are getting ready to watch for the Super Bowl, the upcoming Winter Olympics, or any other big sporting event, you probably aren’t thinking about the possibility of suffering a heart attack. In a story published by CBS News, studies have shown that the risk increases when fans are watching major sporting events. The chances of a person having a heart attack while watching the Super Bowl or a similar event increase from 1 in 100,000 to between 2 and 3 per 100,000. Rabid sports fans beware: if your team loses the Big Game, your risk of heart attack increases on game day and for ...

Not all heart attacks look like what we see on television or in the movies. Knowing the heart attack warning signs and acting appropriately can help to save someone’s life…even your own! 1. Pressure or pain in the chest This crushing sensation may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting or sweating. A sensation that feels like heartburn may be something much more serious. 2. Chest pain that radiates to other parts of the upper body Pain from a heart attack can start in the chest region but move outward. The “classic” sign of a heart attack you have heard of may chest pain th...

New research released by Donald Lloyd-Jones from Northwestern University offers predictions about the likelihood of a 40-year-old developing certain medical conditions during their lifetime, and the numbers are astonishing. Here’s the rundown: A man has a 1 in 2 chance of developing coronary heart disease. For women, the odds are 1 in 3. The chance of having a stroke are the same for both genders at 1 in 5. One in eight men will have sudden cardiac death, which is defined as death from coronary heart disease within 60 minutes of the onset of symptoms. The most common cause of death is a...

Taking a low dose of Aspirin on a daily basis can help prevent a heart attack in patients who have already had one. If you have not had a heart attack or a stroke, the risks of taking Aspirin may outweigh the benefits. The results of a study published in the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin found that people who have not had a heart attack who are taking Aspirin daily are at increased risk for intestinal bleeding or hemorrhagic stroke from taking the medication. Aspirin is used to help heart attack survivors because it helps to thin the blood and prevent clots. Since there are always risks assoc...

Post-menopausal women need to be concerned about their risk of heart attack, but new evidence points to increased risk for younger women as well. The Archives of Internal Medicine has published a detailed analysis indicating that the number of women between the ages of 35-54 having heart attacks has risen over the past 20 years. Interestingly enough, during the same time, the number of heart attacks suffered by men in the same age group decreased. Part of the reason that men are having fewer heart attacks is that doctors are more likely to counsel them about their risk of having one. Since hea...

The presence of a protein found in the blood indicates that a person is at risk for a heart attack, but is not a good way to predict the likelihood they will have a stroke. High levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for inflammation, may indicate that a heart attack is likely, but the same doesn’t hold true when it comes to predicting the likelihood of a stroke. Researchers followed 2,240 people in New York. All of them were over the age of 40 and stroke free. The study tracked them for eight years. During that time, participants with a CRP level higher than 3 mg/L of blood were 7...

The U.S. Surgeon General has announced that exposure to second-hand smoke not only causes lung cancer and heart disease: it can also trigger a heart attack in non-smokers. A new report published by the Institute of Medicine claims that even brief exposure is enough to bring serious health consequences to others. The report will only serve to underline the need for a ban on smoking in the workplace, as well as restaurants and other places where members of the public gather. Nearly 50,000 people in the United States die due to exposure to second-hand smoke every year. If, as the report implies, ...

Researchers at Kaiser Permanente have discovered that patients who took a combination of two drugs were able to reduce their risk of serious heart attack and stroke by a whopping 60 percent. The problem with this approach to prevention was getting the study participants to take the medication regularly. The idea for the study was to lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels simultaneously for the 170,000 participants. All of the people who took the combination of lovastatin for cholesterol and lisinopril for blood pressure were California residents and members of Kaiser Permanente’s ma...