Check Up - Heart Attacks

Heart attacks are caused by an artery to the heart becoming blocked. The symptoms of an attack are pain, breathlessness, sweating, racing pulse, nausea, and pain as far as the jaw or stomach Some heart attacks don’t cause the classic symptoms, sufferers just complain of feeling unwell, often when the person the elderly or has diabetes. In the UK there are more than 200,000 heart attacks every year. Women statistically have a worse outcome from a heart attack than men. After a heart attack time is of the essence. Reopening the blocked artery as soon as possible is crucial to reduce the amount of permanent damage to the heart. This can be done by using clot busting drugs or a procedure called an angioplasty where a tube containing a small balloon is passed through to the narrowed artery. The balloon is then inflated so it squashes the fatty tissue responsible for the narrowing, and widens the artery. In this programme Barbara Myers puts listeners' questions about heart attacks, and what lifestyle changes can be made to prevent them, to Professor Keith Channon from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.