By Donna V. Scaglione
Our hearts are amazing little muscles. They are slightly larger than our fists, yet they are powerful enough to supply our organs, limbs, and complex inner systems with the blood and nutrients they need to keep our bodies functioning and healthy.
Most of the time our hearts go about their business of beating 100,000 times a day pumping about 2,000 gallons of blood, and we barely notice. But as we age, our hearts become more vulnerable to the wear and tear of our lifestyles. Some 785,000 American have first-time heart attacks annually and one-third of all deaths in the United States are from cardiovascular disease, according to the journal Circulation.
Would you notice if something were wrong with your heart? Consider these warning signs.
1. Shortness of breath
Being short of breath is one of several signs of heart failure, and usually you will experience more than one symptom, the American Heart Association says. Heart failure is when the heart can’t do its job of efficiently pumping blood and oxygen throughout the body. So the other symptoms that occur include a feeling of fatigue when doing everyday activities, swelling from fluid retention and blood build-up, coughing that produces white and pink blood-tinged mucus, and impaired thinking as levels of important substances in the blood, like sodium, fluctuate.
If you have heart failure, chances are you’ve had another heart-related ailment that wore on this important muscle such as high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, or a heart attack. However, the condition is treatable through diet and lifestyle changes as well as medication.
