Symptoms vary. We must guard our hearts properly. The heart provides oxygen to the brain, warmth to the hands, and life. However, heart disease—including heart attack and heart failure—is the leading cause of mortality in the US.
Heart Attack Symptoms Vs. Heart Failure Symptoms
Most heart attack symptoms vary from heart failure symptoms. You presumably see a heart attack victim holding their chest before collapsing. According to the NHLBI, heart attack symptoms might be mild, but chest pain—especially pressure, tightness, hurting, or a squeezing feeling that extends down the left arm or jaw—is a typical indicator. Dr. Stempien-Otero believes women are more likely to develop nausea, dyspepsia, cold sweats, and severe, inexplicable exhaustion. Shortness of breath and abrupt dizziness are other warning signs.
Dr. Stempien-Otero believes shortness of breath, particularly during movement, is the most prevalent heart failure sign. Getting up from the sofa, going up the stairs, and doing other daily activities shouldn’t leave you breathless or weary. When the heart stops beating adequately, fluid gathers around the lungs, causing breathlessness and leg, ankle, and foot edema.
According to the Mayo Clinic, other heart failure symptoms include a chronic cough, abdominal swelling, fast, unexplained weight gain from fluid buildup, nausea, loss of appetite, difficulties focusing, and a rapid or irregular pulse.
RELATED: Cardiac Arrest vs. Heart Attack: What’s the Difference?
What Are The Causes Of A Heart Attack Vs. Heart Failure?
Jeffrey Teuteberg, MD, division head of heart failure, cardiac transplantation, and mechanical circulatory support at Stanford Medicine, tells SELF that many variables increase the chance of heart attack and heart failure. High blood pressure, cholesterol, sugar, and body size are metabolic variables. Both disorders are connected to heart-damaging drugs like cigarettes. Genetics and family history may affect either.
- Heart attack risk factors include:
- Age (45 years or older)
- Inactivity
- High-sodium or trans-fat diets
- Tobacco or alcohol abuse
- diabetes
- Cholesterol or hypertension
- Heart attacks in family
- Overstress
- autoimmunity
- Preeclampsia (a high blood pressure disorder during pregnancy)
Heart attacks increase heart failure risk. Dr. Teuteberg believes cardiac attacks damage the heart, making it pump less effectively. “Much greater risk for getting the forms of heart failure that cause the heart muscle not to squeeze as well,” he says of heart attack survivors.
Other frequent heart failure risk factors include:
- CHD
- Cholesterol or hypertension
- Valve damage
- Heart damage
- Heart inflammation
- Birth defects Abnormal heart rhythms
- Lung thrombus
- Tobacco or alcohol abuse
- Serious viral infections
- Severe allergies
- Snoring
- Diabetes
These risk factors impact people differently. According to the Cleveland Clinic, Black women are twice as likely to suffer persistent high blood pressure during pregnancy. Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Indigenous Americans have higher diabetes rates than white Americans. These gaps are complicated, but socioeconomic determinants of health—exposure to racial discrimination and violence, financial stability, excellent education, empathic health care, supportive living situations, and healthy food—play a role. These risk factors may increase heart attack, heart failure, or both.
How Is A Heart Attack Treated Vs. Heart Failure?
All of the symptoms above might indicate additional health conditions. When should you visit a doctor? Dr. Stempien-Otero advises going to