Heart attacks are caused by factors accumulated over a lifetime mostly affecting people aged over 45.
Nearly one in ten Australians aged 30 to 65 have been told by the doctor that they are at high risk of having a heart attack in the next five years.
Heart Foundation’s director of support and care Rachelle Foreman says half of the population wouldn’t know what to do if they suffer from a heart attack.
Most people don’t necessarily know that their heart is actually a muscle that pumps blood around the body and like any other muscle in the body, it actually has its own blood supply and it has its own arteries that actually provides it with that oxygen and nutrient. So what a heart attack is when those arteries that supply the heart with its oxygen get blocked, and then with age, it does increase, a bit like plumbing in our hose that the chances of that one or more of your arteries to the heart becoming blocked increase.
Research shows that people of Asian, Maori, African and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds are genetically predisposed to heart diseases.
Studies by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that in 2017, coronary heart diseases accounted for 13 per cent of Australian male deaths, although one in ten female died of the same causes.
