Jose Rivera

July 9, 2017
Research Paper
Nutrition 1020
Jean Widdison
History of a Heart attack

Healthy diet and exercise is important to everyones health, especially when you are

living with a heart condition. There are many factors that contribute to heart conditions that can

be managed by simple day-to-day activities, even more so, if certain heart diseases are relatively

close to your family history. The description of a heart attack is simple and there are many

different symptoms that can identify a heart attack. Certain genetics can also be a factor to heart

diseases such as ethnicity, gender, and age. Increasing your intake of whole grains, fruits and

vegetables, dairy intake, and also increasing cardiovascular exercises can help reduced that

likelihood of a heart attack, but it takes determination and patience because it not something that

can be resolved overnight.

There is always some sort of health related illness with everyones family history,

whether it be diabetes or kidney disease, mine happens to be a heart condition. That is something

that my family and I were not expecting. At age 48, my father was diagnosed with a myocardial

infection or a heart attack. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention or the

CDC, 1 in every 4 deaths are caused by a heart related illness in the United States. Unfortunately,

my father fell into that group of people.

His heart attack was not like the ones that actors were portraying in movies; it developed

slowly. It first started with what my father described as a heart burn. He took an antacid like

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Prevacid, however the heart burn feeling did not subside. It was not until about an hours later

that he experienced lightheadedness, left arm pain and incredible chest pain. He claimed that his

chest pain was like an overweight woman sitting on top of my chest. Since I work at in the

healthcare field, I was aware of his symptoms and took him straight into the nearest emergency

room. When we arrived, he was weak getting out of the car. As soon as we went into the

emergency room, he was rushed in to be treated.

My father was not the healthiest person. He was in the process of starting his own

business and was having a difficult time maintaining it. He had developed stress to the point

where he grew gray hairs. In almost every meal, he would consume greasy fast food for

breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner. Surprisingly, he was not overweight but that does not

mean that someone is healthy. It was because he was moving around a lot, getting his steps in.

He would also skip meals sometimes due to the high demand of his work. My father had smoked

in the past but quit because he did not want to influence his kids. However, after making his

business, he developed that habit again. Though he had the ability to set his own hours, he did

not take any days off. He would leave at 6 in the morning and return home at about 9 sometimes

10 oclock at night. You can tell that he was not getting enough sleep by the way the bags under

his eyes were forming. These are some of the factors that might have influenced his heart attack.

There are many ways to name a heart attack has such as a myocardial infarction (MI) or a

STEMI. A STEMI is defined as a ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction and can be

detected by an electrocardiogram or an ECG (also known as EKG). A heart attacks is explained

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as the death of the heart muscle. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), a heart

attack happens when a section of the coronary artery has been blocked by a mixture of fat,

cholesterol, and other material known as plaque.

The main job of blood is to transport oxygen and nutrients to the cells and to take with it

carbon dioxide and other wastes away from the cells. Since blood is being blocked from an area

of the heart due to plaque, it is causing the muscles to become oxygen deprived, which is also

known as an ischemia (AHA, 2016). The heart muscle cells still work under these conditions

until they are no longer decides to beat, the muscles are then dying the person is experiencing a

heart attack.

The signs and symptoms come just before or during a heart attack occurs. The most

common symptoms of a heart attack are shortness of breath, pain or discomfort of the left or both

arms, lightheadedness, heart burn, and chest pain. Though the chest pain is very particular, it is

not a sharp pain like if somebody was poking your chest or a throbbing pain, it is more of a

pressure based pain. There are some patients that claim feel like an elephant is sitting on your

chest (or in my fathers case, an overweight woman). Though before the event of a heart attack,

the person has the condition of a hardening of the coronary artery, a condition known as

atherosclerosis (AHA, 2016). Atherosclerosis is the process of the buildup of plaque in the

arteries. It has no symptoms and if this condition is not treated in a timely manner, it can result in

a heart attack or stroke.

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 Heart attacks can affect both men and women and women are more likely to experience

more of the other symptoms besides chest pain than men. In fact, cardiovascular diseases are the

leading cause of death in both men and woman, with men being more than 50 percent of that

sufferers (CDC, 2015). The data has been taken for the past 5 years and illustrates that heart

related illness should be prioritized in the healthcare setting because of the number of deaths it

has caused. Obesity can lead to a bad heart because of the persons daily intake of saturated or

hydrogenated fat and lack of exercise. Also, the heart is surrounded with a higher concentration

of fat than people with are physically active. People who smoke have a higher change of a heart

attack. The National Heart, Lungs, and Blood Institute (NIH) states that smoking will increase

the chances of getting atherosclerosis because of the chemicals that are in cigarettes.

Ethnicity also has an impact on heart health. People who have an African-American

background have a higher likelihood of heart related illness like heart attacks. That is because

African-Americans are predisposed to having high blood pressure than any other race. That is

because they are more sensitive to sodium (Harvard, 2015). The mechanics of fluid retention in

the body is very complex. To simplify it, sodium draws water back into the body and it also

narrows blood vessels. This is beneficial to people who live in a warm/hot climate to conserve

water. Think of a fire hose and its high-water pressure. Now picture the lumen of the hose

becoming narrower; the pressure is increased and more water is ejected. That is the same concept

in blood vessels. Having high blood pressure is known to rupture capillaries and therefore

depriving the heart muscle from blood.

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 Along with genetics, age is something that we cannot control. As we age, our body is not

as capable at maintain our fat or cholesterol balances as it used to. Therefore, women after the

age of 55 and men after the age of 45 are more likely to have some sort of heart related illness

(NIH, 2015). Some people can manage with diet and exercise alone, but others have to rely on

medications to lower their cholesterol. These medications are named the statin drugs because

their names end in it; examples are atorvastatin, rosuvastatin, and pravastatin just to name a few.

They work to prevent the formation of cholesterol in the liver and help lower low-density

lipoproteins and triglycerides and help raise high-density lipoproteins (AHA). But if pills are not

for you, then diet and exercise is the way to go.

So, what to do next? First, consult your doctor and ask how your cholesterol levels are. If

it is normal, great, keep doing what you are doing. If it is not great, the first thing that they would

want you to do is to exercise and eat healthy. Exercising does not have to be an intense and

vigorous activity performed every single day. It can be something as simple as walking non-stop

for 30 minutes twice a day, three times a week. This is an example of moderate-intensity aerobic

physical activity (Wardlaw, pg. 469). Because it is something that can be done by anyone and it

can be the start to a more intense workout. If time seems to be an issue, try to find other ways to

promote exercise or set aside other activities for exercise.

Sitting on the couch and binge watching a show on Netflix is a perfect example of finding

time to work out. Maybe skipping one 30 minute episode just to take a walk is a perfect

example. An early morning and evening walk can help increase physical activity as well. If time

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really is hard to come by, maybe try a more intense workout, or just do as much as you can

(some exercise is better than no exercise). Jogging, mountain biking, or any competitive sport

can increase the intensity of the work out. These are some examples of vigorous-intensity

aerobic physical activity (Wardlaw, pg. 469). With these exercised you only have to do about 75

minutes per week. To put into perspective, 30 minutes exercised, two to three times a week.

Though exercising can be exhausting for most of us, making exercise fun for you is one way to

stay determined to your goal.

Doctors would tell you to eat better as well to maintain weight and stay healthy. A

healthier diet consists of more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and less saturated

and hydrogenated fats as well as less sugary snacks that are filled with empty calories can be a

great goal. Consuming more fish can help because it contains omega-3-fatty acids. Omega-3

fatty acid is essential because it can assist in the prevention of clots and inflammation that are

formed in the body. In many cases, consuming fish can reduce the risk of a heart attack in some

individual when it is consumed twice a week (Wardlaw, pg. 164).

Eating fruits and vegetables that are high in fiber is recommended. Fiber has a lot of

fictions in the body like increasing the flow of the gastrointestinal tract. But it also helps with the

secretion of cholesterol in the body. It does so by inhibiting the absorption of cholesterol in the

small intestine (Wardlaw, pg. 149). Whole grains tend to have a larger amount of fiber. Foods

such as oatmeal and fortified cereals. Another sweat way to decrease the chances of a heart

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attack is to eat dark chocolate. Dark chocolate contains flavanols which has an antioxidant and

inflammatory effect on the body, similar to what omega-3 does (Wardlaw, pg. 193).

There are many ways that a heart attack can be prevented. We can all agree that diet and

exercise is the go to thing to do. Though my father and I did not know how important nutrition

is, if we would have known, maybe he would not have a heart attack. Exercising does not have

to be intense, it can be as simple and strolling around your neighborhood with a few friends that

support yours and their own health.

Exercising does not have to be done every day either. It is recommended to have at least

150 minutes a week for adult performing the minimum effort when exercising. Diets high in fat

and cholesterol are not the only culprit of heart attacks, also genetics and family history play a

huge role. If you fall into the category that puts you at risk for a heart attack, it is very important

to get informed and change your diet and exercise habits as soon as possible. There are no

symptoms when the formation of plaque persists, but once the vessel is completely blocked, you

are in for some serious damage that can lead to the end your life. So, enjoy life and the healthy

foods that come with it.

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 Citations
Wardlaw, Gordon M. Contemporary nutrition a functional approach. 4th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Education, 2015. Print.
AHA. "Warning Signs of a Heart Attack." Warning Signs of a Heart Attack. American Heart Association,
June 2016. Web. 09 July 2017.
CDC. "Leading Causes of Death." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, 17 Mar. 2017. Web. 09 July 2017.
NIH. "How Does Smoking Affect the Heart and Blood Vessels?" National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 22 June 2016. Web. 09 July 2017.
Publications, Harvard Health. "Race and ethnicity: Clues to your heart disease risk?" Harvard Health., 17
July 2015. Web. 09 July 2017.