Word: heartedly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Spasm causes heart attack...
Margaret, 32, a California housewife, seemed in perfect health. Then, while shopping one day, she suddenly fell to the floor dead, apparently of a heart attack. Harry's demise was less unexpected; the New York stockbroker, 49, had been suffering from angina pectoris, periodic attacks of severe chest pain, for several months before he died in his sleep. In both cases, doctors assumed the fatal attacks had been triggered by blood clots or atherosclerotic plaques clogging the pencil-thin arteries that supply oxygen-rich blood to heart muscle. But autopsies showed that the coronary arteries of both victims were...
What caused the attacks? A growing number of cardiac specialists now agree on the probable villain in these and thousands of other heart attacks: coronary artery spasm, a sudden and transient constriction of a blood vessel. Lasting from 30 seconds to many minutes, the spasm effectively blocks a vessel and keeps oxygen from reaching the heart...
Today spasm is one of the most active areas of medical research. Last week, in Anaheim, Calif., at a meeting of the American Heart Association, experts discussed the newest findings. Two of their more intriguing speculations...
...Coronary spasm may explain the infrequent incidents of chest pain and heart attack in premenopausal women, who rarely develop atherosclerosis. The spasm may cause blood to flow more slowly, thus allowing blood platelets to clump, clot and seal off the pathway...