How Heart Attacks Strike A heart attack seems to strike out of
nowhere, but it actually involves a sequence of steps that build
over years to culminate in a crisis experienced over minutes or
hours. The typical fatality of a heart attack is a man over 65
years old, but they can occur at any age in men and women.
Women's heart attacks are more likely to involve "silent"
symptoms that are harder to recognize than men's. About 1.2
million Americans suffer from heart attacks annually, and about
40 percent die from them. Recent research shows that marital
spats or the loss of a loved one both increase the risk of heart
problems. Heart attacks can be signaled by nausea, dizziness, a
shortness of breath, palpitations, unusual sweating, and the
classic pain in the chest that radiates to the extremities
(called angina). Inside, a catastrophic number of heart cells
are starving to death for lack of oxygenated blood, and the
heart loses its ability to pump. The heart is muscular organ.
The average heart beats 100,000 ti