Heart Attacks

Humans and Diseases - 10SCIE

Finn Le Sueur

2024

O Whāinga Ako

Explain what happens in a heart attack and how heart diseases can be treated and prevented.

Arteries and Plaques

  • Arteries carry blood away from the heart
  • Throughout our life we build up plaques in our arteries
  • A plaque is a fatty/waxy substance that restricts blood flow
Source

Risk Factors

There are certain things that will increase your risk of developing more plaque over your lifetime. Some things we can control, others we cannot.

  • age
  • height and weight
  • blood pressure
    • Affected by a high fat/salt diet
  • cholesterol
    • This is a type of fat we get from animal-based products
  • personal medical history
  • family medical history
  • smoking status

Heart Attacks

  • Over time these plaques grow larger, and sometimes a piece of plaque can break off!
  • This is a problem because a blood clot forms
    • A blood clot is where liquid blood goes semi-solid. It does this to reducing/stop bleeding.
  • This clot will stop blood flow in the artery
  • This is dangerous because blood carries oxygen which our cells need for respiration!
Source

  • If this occurs in a coronal artery (an artery that supplies the heart), then a section of the heart will not receive blood
  • If no blood is flowing, then the muscle supplied by that artery will not receive oxygen and will die
  • This is called myocardial infarction (MI) or a heart attack
    • myo - muscle
    • cardial - heart
    • infarction - death
Source

Treatment

  • Blood thinning medication, so that clots are less common
  • Blood pressure medication, so that your arteries relax and widen
  • Cholesterol reducing medication (statins), to reduce formation of future plaques
  • Surgery to put in a stent, to hold your artery open
Source

Prevention

  • Quit smoking
  • Eat less cholesterol overall
    • LDL cholesterol is bad because it gets built up into plaques!
    • HDL cholesterol is okay because your cells can use it more easily
  • Eat less salt to reduce blood pressure
  • Eat less fat because plaques are partly made of fat
  • Limit alcohol