Silent Heart Attacks - The New Killer

Sudden heart attacks are catching young and seemingly healthy indians unawares despite a wealth of diagnostic and treatment advances. What are we missing?

- Sonali Acharjee

Three conditions have long been established as fatal to the well-being of our hearts-high blood sugar, high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol. And yet in a country whose people are among other South Asians predicted by the World Health Organization to have a 40 per cent higher chance of having heart attacks than in the West, the lifestyle choices perplex medical experts. Popular food delivery apps Swiggy and Zomato, for example, delivered a whopping 12 million samosas in the past year alone, two biryanis per second and over 200,000 cheese dips-all high in saturated fat, salt and simple carbohydrates (which ultimately get converted to sugar in our bodies).

Worse, urban Indians are walking less, taking on more stress and breathing in more polluted air, which means the age at which cardiac conditions appear has come down. That in itself does not surprise doctors. What surprises them is how dissociated we have become with our bodies-ignoring signs, risk factors and even symptoms, till it is too late. This when early detection and diagnosis of heart ailments has undergone a sea change, as has treatment, with a range of newer chemicals as well as surgical techniques that can handle the most extreme of cases, which once we would have given up on.