Ten tips on how to recognize symptoms of heart attack

1. A heart attack most often causes chest pain.
   
2. The pain is located in the center of the chest, is intense in its severity and most victims describe it as the worst pain they've ever felt in their lives.
   
   
3. The character of the pain is very difficult to describe accurately. Chest pain in a heart attack has been variously described as being crushing, tearing, binding or feeling like a heavy weight has been placed on one's chest.
   
   
4. The pain lasts longer than a few minutes. In angina pectoris, a milder version of a block to the heart's blood supply, the pain typically stops within five minutes.
   
   
5. The chest pain in a heart attack may spread or radiate to the neck, jaw, left arm and sometimes even to the fingertips or back.
   
   
6. During a heart attack, in addition to chest pain, there may be associated nausea with or without vomiting, a sudden bowel movement, profuse sweating and an ashen pallor.
   
   
7. In severe heart attacks, the heart's pumping action may be so badly impeded that the victim loses consciousness.
   
   
8. Due to the decreased pumping capacity of the heart, the patient's pulse feels feeble and thready, and the heart rate is extremely fast.
   
   
9. In rare cases, as in patients who are diabetic, the heart attack may not be very painful, and sometimes can even be entirely painless.
   
   
10. Other disorders that could be confused with a heart attack include acute gallbladder infection, perforation of stomach or intestine, pulmonary embolism and aortic dissection.
    
    
11. Confirmed diagnosis of a heart attack can be made in a hospital, by recording an ECG or by analysing the levels of various enzymes in the blood.

Ten tips on healthy heart

1. Stop smoking. Quitting smoking is the single most important thing a person can do to live longer. If you are a smoker, you are twice as likely to have a heart attack than a non-smoker. But from the moment you stop smoking, the risk of heart attack starts to reduce.

2. Cut down on salt. Too much salt can cause high blood pressure, which increases the risk of developing coronary heart disease. Avoid foods like crisps, salted nuts, canned and packet soups and sauces, baked beans and canned vegetables, pork pies, pizzas and ready meals.

3. Watch your diet. A healthy diet can help to reduce the risk of developing heart disease, and can also help increase the chances of survival after a heart attack. You should try to have a balanced diet, containing plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, oily fish, starchy foods such as wholegrain bread, pasta and rice.

4. Monitor your alcohol. Too much alcohol can damage the heart muscle, increase blood pressure and also lead to weight gain. Binge drinking will increase your risk of having a heart attack, so you should aim to limit your intake to one to two units a day.

5. Get active.The heart is a muscle and it needs exercise to keep fit so that it can pump blood efficiently round your body with each heart beat. You should aim for 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a day.

6. Manage your weight. Carrying a lot of extra weight as fat can greatly affect your health and increases the risk of life-threatening conditions such as coronary heart disease and diabetes. If you are overweight or obese, start by making small, but healthy changes to what you eat, and try to become more active.

7. Get your blood pressure and cholesterol levels checked . The higher your blood pressure, the shorter your life expectancy. High levels of cholesterol in the blood - produced by the liver from saturated fats - can lead to fatty deposits in your coronary arteries that increase your risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and diseases that affect the circulation. You can help lower your cholesterol level by exercising and eating high-fibre foods such as porridge, beans, pulses, lentils, nuts, fruits and vegetables.

8. Learn to manage your stress levels. If you find things are getting on top of you, you may fail to eat properly, smoke and drink too much and this may increase your risk of a heart attack.

9. Check your family history . If a close relative is at risk of developing coronary heart disease from smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, lack of physical activity, obesity and diabetes, then you could be at risk too.

10. Make sure you can recognise the early signs of coronary heart disease . Tightness or discomfort in the chest, neck, arm or stomach which comes on when you exert yourself but goes away with rest may be the first sign of angina, which can lead to a heart attack if left untreated.