New York
Do animals also have heart attacks and how can we know if animals also have heart attacks or not? The fact is that not much has been done to investigate this question. If a coronary artery is blocked in a bird or mammal, the heart loses its oxygen supply and the creature is at risk of having a heart attack.
Thomas Overwick, a professor and physiologist at San Bernardino State University in California, says you can observe that an animal has died suddenly, but rarely an autopsy is performed and blockages are found in the coronary arteries. How do we know if other animals have a heart attack?
On the other hand, given the structure of the heart, researchers can predict that vertebrates are more likely to have a heart attack. According to Overcocks, the coronary arteries are the only source of oxygen in the hearts of mammals and birds.
These branches merge into smaller arteries and capillaries where the heart muscle cells carry oxygen and eliminate carbon dioxide. This is the only way to get blood and oxygen everywhere inside the heart.
However, some non-mammals have slightly different heart systems that protect them from heart attacks. In addition to the oxygen supply to the blood vessels and ciliaries, their heart is based on sponge-like tissues that carry oxygen and blood to and from the heart cells. This is not the case with birds and mammals because the walls of their hearts are harder.
