What are the common symptoms of coronary heart disease?

Condition analysis:
The leading symptom of coronary heart disease is angina pectoris or stenocardia. This is a tight pain in your chest, which occurs during physical stress, often accompanied by pain radiating into the left arm, or sometimes into the right arm or the jaw.

If the person relaxes taking a break, the heart recovers and the stenocardia ceases within a few minutes. Pain that starts suddenly and continues despite physical rest is likely to be symptomatic of a heart attack.

In this case, immediate consultation at the emergency unit is inevitable. In case of stable angina pectoris, a doctor should be consulted within the next days to a week. However, it is strongly advised.

Instructions:
More Do's and Don'ts
-- Don't be a smoke stack. People who smoke are twice as likely to have a heart attack.

-- Get moving. Your heart is a muscle, and if you don't exercise it, it will get weaker and be less able to rebound from heart troubles.

-- Watch your weight. The American Heart Association (AHA) says that if you're overweight, losing as little as 10 to 20 pounds can work wonders on your heart.

-- Eat healthy. The AHA suggests getting less than 30 percent of your calories from fat, and less than 10 percent of that fat should be the saturated kind. You should get no more than 300 mg of cholesterol a day.