| ■ Children Can Suffer Heart Attacks | 2007.10.09 |
| Heart attacks in children are a rare but under-recognized health issue, say Ohio doctors who documented nine cases of heart attacks in children as young as 12 that occurred between 1995 and 2006. The doctors found that none of the children (all but one were boys) had common heart attack risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, drug abuse, unhealthy cholesterol levels, or family history, the Associated Press reported. The most likely cause of their heart attacks was a heart spasm that briefly cut off blood supply, said the study, which appears in the October issue of the journal Pediatrics. It's not clear what causes these spasm-related heart attacks. The researchers found that the young heart attack patients in this study did have abnormal levels of an enzyme made by injured or dying heart tissue and many had abnormal heart-imaging tests, the AP reported. |