What was claimed
Coughing really hard can help someone if they’re having a heart attack.
Our verdict
Incorrect. This is not recommended medical advice for treating a suspected heart attack, and it risks making a person's condition worse. If you think you are having a heart attack you should call 999 immediately.
Facebook posts advising people to cough really hard if they’re alone and suspect they’re having a heart attack are sharing incorrect medical advice. It’s not true that coughing can protect someone from a heart attack, and it could make their condition worse.
The posts claim coughing “repeatedly and very strongly” can help as “deep breathing gives oxygen to your lungs and coughing movements boost the heart and blood circulation”.
This idea, which is sometimes described as “cough CPR”, has circulated since at least 1999 and we’ve debunked it several times before.
The British Heart Foundation has said there’s “no medical evidence to support ‘cough CPR’” and described it as a “dangerous myth”.
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A 2021 University of Warwick study found it offered “no benefit in saving lives”, and noted that it does not actually involve CPR. The Resuscitation Council UK has previously said it’s “concerned by such incorrect ‘advice’”, and that attempting ‘cough CPR’ risks making a person’s condition worse.
The posts also seem to confuse a heart attack with cardiac arrest. A heart attack happens when the supply of blood to the heart is blocked (usually by a blood clot), while cardiac arrest is when the heart suddenly stops pumping blood around the body.
Symptoms of a heart attack can include chest pain, nausea and shortness of breath. People who suspect they are having a heart attack when alone should call 999 and ask for an ambulance.
A cardiac arrest can happen in the advanced stages of a heart attack, but can be caused by other things too. CPR is recommended if someone is having cardiac arrest, after calling 999..
The ‘cough CPR’ myth is likely very loosely based on some academic case reports of people who were able to maintain a regular heartbeat while coughing after developing an arrhythmia (an irregular or abnormal heartbeat)—but crucially, this is not the same as a heart attack or cardiac arrest, and happened during treatment in hospital and under medical supervision.
False information can spread widely on social media and may be harmful if people use it to make decisions about their health.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because this is not recommended medical advice and there’s no evidence supporting ‘cough CPR’.
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