The health of your heart and cardiovascular system is an extremely important thing to keep your eye on. As heart disease is the number one cause of death in North America, your life literally depends on your ability to monitor and correctly interpret the early signs of heart trouble. If you are repeatedly experiencing any of the symptoms below, you should consult a doctor to check it out. When it comes to heart health, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
1. Labored Breathing or Shortness of Breath (i.e., Dyspnea)
An early sign that something is wrong with your heart is an unnatural shortness of breath and a feeling of compression on your chest that makes it difficult to inhale. Shortness of breath typically indicates an early stage of heart disease, and a study carried out by the National Institute of Health (and published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Institute) found that 40% of women who had had heart attacks reported strange shortness of breath. This shortness of breath is evidence that your heart isn’t pumping enough oxygen into your bloodstream. Having a persistent cough that makes it difficult to breathe is also something to be aware of. According to MedicineNet, this can be a sub-symptom of dyspnea.
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