In February, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) advises Americans to get heart smart, protect #OurHearts, and face The Heart Truth.This is not some anti-Valentines Day push from a global leader in medical research, but part of the NIHs education plan for American Heart Month. In the US, heart disease is the leading cause of death.Rather than a single condition, heart disease includes several cardiac maladies that may be silently lurking and undiagnosed until ailments like an arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) or a myocardial infarction (heart attack) manifests.Each year, symptoms pointing to a myocardial infarction bring about 20 million patients to emergency departments in North America and Europe.1 Rather than unique red flags, myocardial infarction symptoms including weakness, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, and chest pain are also hallmarks of noncardiac and often benign disorders.1It is far easier to spot a broken heart in the colloquial sense than in a clinical one. Continue reading →

Increased Risk of Myocardial Infarction Post-Stroke A recent study presented at the American Stroke Associations International Stroke Conference throws light on the elevated risk of myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, in patients with ischemic stroke. The study reveals that these patients have almost double the risk for MI within a year compared to patients with migraine and other transient neurological events. However, the risk does not seem to heighten for patients with cervical artery dissection (CeAD) alone. Continue reading →