Heart disease isn’t just something old people get anymore, it’s becoming shockingly common even in younger adults. Globally, heart diseases are the number one killer, responsible for about 18 million deaths every year. In India specifically, heart attacks and heart related conditions hit people in their 30s and 40s far more than many realize: up to 25 % of heart attacks happen in people under 40, and a large share of sudden cardiac arrests are in those under 50. Despite these stark numbers, awareness, especially among young adults, is surprisingly low. Lots of young people believe heart disease is something “old folks” worry about. In fact, surveys have found that nearly half of people under 45 don’t think they’re at risk, and many wouldn’t recognize a heart attack even if they were experiencing one.Why is awareness so low? It’s partly because heart disease has long been labeled an “older-person disease”, so young people tune out warnings. Another big reason heart disease flies under the radar in young adults is poor awareness of risk factors. Things like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, prediabetes, obesity, smoking, chronic stress, and even lack of sleep quietly damage the heart over years. The scary part? Many young people don’t know they have them. Because these conditions rarely cause symptoms early on, they’re ignored. Add the belief that “I’m too young for heart problems,” and people skip screenings, until a serious event suddenly proves otherwise.
99% of heart related diseases are tied to 4 risk factors
A study of nine million adults in Korea and nearly 7,000 in the United States has found that more than 99% of people who developed new heart disease, heart failure, or stroke had at least one of the risk factors before their diagnosis: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and tobacco smoking.“These results not only challenge claims that CHD events frequently occur without antecedent major risk factors but also demonstrate that other CVD events, including HF or stroke, rarely occur in the absence of nonoptimal traditional risk factors, highlighting the importance of primordial prevention efforts,” the researchers have said.
The findings of the study have been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.Researchers looked at people who eventually developed serious heart problems, like coronary heart disease (CHD), heart failure (HF), or stroke, and asked one key question: Did these people already have warning signs before they got sick?The answer was: yes, most of them did.Before these people were diagnosed with heart disease or had a stroke, the researchers checked their past health records from earlier doctor visits. They looked for traditional risk factors, meaning common things we already know can hurt the heart. If a person had even one of these risk factors at any point before the disease showed up, they were counted.Those risk factors included:High blood pressure (120/80 or higher)High cholesterol (200 mg/dL or more) or taking cholesterol-lowering drugsHigh blood sugar, prediabetes, or diabetes, or using diabetes medicationSmoking, either in the past or currentlySo the big takeaway? Heart disease usually doesn’t come out of nowhere. It builds slowly, and even one ignored risk factor can make a real difference over time.
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