Is shortness of breath and difficulty exercising a sign or symptom of heart disease?

Consultant Cardiologist Ahmed Elgahamaz speaks about shortness of breath and difficulty exercising and how these symptoms are linked to heart disease.

If you experience breathlessness this is a very common symptom of heart disease.

It can represent underlying coronary artery disease or other forms of what we call heart failure and the hearts ability to pump adequately to maintain good circulation.

Breathlessness is often a difficult symptom for the patient to assess because we all experience it at different levels because it’s affected by your fitness, your weight and your usual activity level.

However, anybody feeling out of breath while doing everyday activities, especially if you haven’t experienced this before, should have this investigated by an expert. We want to make sure it does not reflect underlying heart disease, which can be diagnosed early so that we take the appropriate steps to avoid any future problems to the heart.

I strongly urge you to take our heart disease online self-test to assess your risk of developing heart disease in the future. It will take you less than five minutes and will give you a good idea if you are at increased risk and whether or not you need to see a specialist.