Heart Attack Facts

Here are some interesting facts heart attack - learn them and help yourself live longer.

One and a half million heart attacks happen every year in the United States, resulting in half a million deaths. Over 230,000 women die every year from cardiovascular disease.

A heart attack happens about once every twenty seconds. A death from heart attack happens almost once a minute.

More women than men die from sudden deaths by heart attacks. Women over fifty that have heart attacks that result in death more than twice as often as men. Even in women under fifty years old, the number of women who die from heart attacks is significantly more than the number of men.

Nearly fourteen million Americans have a history of angina or heart attacks.

About fifty percent of heart attack deaths occur within an hour of the onset of the attack, outside of a hospital. There is a six to nine percent early mortality rate from heart attacks for those who do live long enough to reach a hospital.

From the years 1983 to 1993, deaths from heart attacks fell about thirty percent, but have not fallen as much for women as for men.

The most common time for heart attacks is to happen on Monday mornings. The second most common time is Saturday mornings. Early morning times tend to be more common because blood platelets are more sticky at that time.

Cardiovascular disease-caused deaths in women exceed the total number of deaths by the next sixteen highest causes. Deaths from all the cancers found in the United States are only half as common as deaths from cardiovascular diseases. Only about one third of women could state that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.

Women take an average of two to four hours more than men to respond to their symptoms of heart attack. This limits the use - often beneficial - of the newer treatments, which work best when used as soon as possible after symptoms start.

If you chew an uncoated aspirin at the first sign of distress or chest discomfort, it can help to reduce the damage to the heart muscle that occurs during heart attacks.

The costs related to heart attacks exceed sixty billion dollars a year.

More than three million women in the United States have a history heart attack, according to facts released by the American Heart Association.

Every heart attack is an event that will result in permanent heart disease or death.

Heart attacks occur when the coronary artery becomes severely or totally blocked, usually by a blood clot. When the muscle of the heart does not receive the oxygenated blood it needs, then it begins to die.

The heart attack's severity usually depends on how much of the muscle of the heart is involved or killed during the attack.