Heart attacks were once thought of as a disease of age – but worrying new data shows they are increasing in healthy young adults.
Roughly 0.3 percent of Americans aged 18-44 had a heart attack in 2019 – but last year that rose to 0.5 percent, or one in 200.
While that may still seem like a relatively low number, it represents a 66 percent increase in cases in just four years, which doctors call ‘alarming.’ It also means that one in five heart attack patients are now younger than 40.
A number of factors are thought to be at play including rampant drug use, obesity, sedentary lifestyles and bad diets. But the timing strongly implies the Covid pandemic has played a role.
The virus itself causes widespread inflammation in the body that can damage the heart or lead to blood clots. Depression, anxiety and stress also surged among young people during lockdowns – and all three have been linked to heart attacks.
Dr Deepak Bhatt, the director of the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital, told TODAY: ‘There are definitely more younger people coming in with heart attacks.
‘There’s data to back that up. What’s driving that is more controversial.’
There were millions fewer visits to doctors during the early years of the pandemic, which means chronic conditions that may contribute to heart disease risk went unnoticed.
An increase in the number of young people developing type 2 diabetes, which is associated with thicker and stickier blood which raises the risk of blood clots and, in turn, heart attacks.
But in many doctors’ view, the timing is simply too coincidental for Covid not to be involved.
Studies have shown that, once in the body, the virus can cause the heart to become inflamed, a condition known as myocarditis, leading to damage that makes it harder to pump blood around the body.
Over time, in extreme cases, this can damage the organ to the point it becomes too weak to adequately pump enough blood to the rest of your body, causing heart failure.
The Covid vaccines made by Pfzier and Moderna have also been shown to cause heart inflammation in rare cases, specifically young men and boys.
But real-world research has shown the risk of having this reaction to a vaccine is much lower than the risk you take not getting vaccinated in the first place – because severe Covid is much more likely to damage the heart.
Dr Laxmi Mehta , the director of Preventative Cardiology and Women’s Cardiovascular Health at The Ohio State University said: ‘It is alarming that younger people don’t feel that they’re at risk for heart disease but it’s not surprising.
‘Most young people think heart disease only happens in old people but that’s not the case.’
Chloe Burke, then 21, collapsed in 2019 while cheerleading at the University of Houston. The Texan native suffered a cardiac event and had to undergo open heart surgery in order to survive.
