Definition
A silent heart attack is a heart attack without the typical associated symptom of chest pain. A heart attack means that the tissue of an organ is not sufficiently supplied with oxygen and other nutrients. The undersupplied cells die as a result.
In the case of a heart attack, what happens is to the heart muscles. In most cases, this dying off of the cells causes a stabbing or pressing pain, which is located approximately in the area of the heart. In the case of a silent heart attack, the origin of the disease is the same.
However, no chest pain occurs. Therefore, a silent heart attack is rarely detected during its occurrence. More about heart attack
Causes
The development of a silent heart attack usually begins with coronary heart disease or atherosclerosis. Factors such as stress, smoking and lack of exercise can promote and accelerate the process of vascular calcification. In the vessels, especially the coronary arteries that supply the heart muscles with blood, fat is deposited and the vessels calcify.
As a result, there are many bottlenecks in the blood supply and less blood reaches the heart muscles. The continuously working heart muscle cells run out of breath, so to speak, because they lack oxygen and other important nutrients. Likewise, waste products produced during the work of the heart muscle are not sufficiently removed.
Due to the insufficient supply, the heart muscle cells die. This normally causes severe pain in the chest area. In the special case of a silent heart attack, this pain does not occur.
Mostly this is due to the fact that the pain is not correctly transported to the brain. All diseases in which nerve damage occurs can therefore be a cause for the absence of the symptom chest pain and thus for the silent course of a heart attack. More about the causes of a heart attack and risks of a heart attackDiabetes mellitus is known as the blood sugar disease.
There are two forms of diabetes mellitus. Diabetes type 1 typically occurs in adolescence and is caused by the body not producing enough insulin. As a result, the sugar cannot be absorbed from food.
Diabetes type 2 occurs at a later age. In this case, the body cells have become accustomed to the insulin in the body, which means that they absorb and break down less sugar while insulin levels remain constant. Both forms are associated with an increased risk of atherosclerosis, i.e. hardening of the blood vessels.
Because the sugar is not absorbed into the cells, it remains in the bloodstream. The high sugar levels in the blood damage the vessels and the calcifications mentioned above occur more quickly. The risk of suffering a heart attack is therefore much higher.
However, the high sugar levels do not only damage the vessels, because they also destroy nerve tissue. This leads to the so-called diabetic neuropathy. This means that the nerves can transmit less information. So when a heart attack occurs, the pain stimuli of the dying cells are not passed on to the brain or are passed on in a reduced form. This is why diabetics can suffer mute heart attacks more often.
