Gastrointestinal Signs of Heart Disease

Most people might think of heart disease as primarily affecting the chest area, but symptoms often extend throughout the body, including the gastrointestinal area.

Significance

• Warning signals of a heart attack might emanate from the abdomen. "Pain may extend downward into your abdominal area and may feel like heartburn," according to the Mayo Clinic.

Women

• Stomach nausea and vomiting regularly accompany heart distress. Although women also suffer chest pain, they are more likely than men to experience gastrointestinal symptoms of a heart attack.

Abdominal Aneurysm

• Classified as a form of heart disease, abdominal aortic aneurysms cause pain in the stomach area with symptoms like "a pulsing sensation in the abdomen, and pain ranging from mild to severe," according to the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

Atherosclerosis

• Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, often brings on an abdominal aortic aneurysm as the aortic artery, which runs through the stomach, balloons and threatens to burst.

Warning

• If it ruptures, an abdominal aortic aneurysm will cause gastrointestinal bleeding requiring emergency surgery. Nearly half of all patients experiencing this will die before reaching the hospital.