Rising Incidences of Heart Attacks in Young Indians [Possible Causes of Actor Sidharth Shukla's Death]

Sidharth Shukla's death due to a massive heart attack has come as a huge shock to everyone who knew him. His fans saw him as a role model and are unable to digest the reality. Everyone is asking just one question: how can a hard-core gym person - a fitness freak- get a heart attack? 

Statistics reveal that 1 in 5 heart attack patients are less than 40 years of age.

He was adored by many for his fitness regime. Sidharth Shukla would spend more than an hour building his body and muscles in the gym. But what is the cause of his death despite his awe-inspiring fitness regime? 

Shukla is not the only young Indian to have succumbed to a heart attack. The cases of sudden death in young people are rising all over the world, including the United States. Heart problems are often blamed. But what triggers heart or cardiovascular problems in Indian youth? Let's explore some science-backed reasons.

Your lifestyle is to be blamed - a sedentary lifestyle and wrong food choices combined with a flood of stress factors, contributing to sleeplessness is the primary cause of heart attack death among young Indians.

Hereditary factors

Your hereditary risk of cardiovascular disease increases if your immediate blood relation, including father, brother, or son, had suffered a heart attack under the age of 55.

In the case of women, if your first-degree female relative, including mom, daughter, or sister, under 65 years of age has had an incidence of heart attack.

Now you might wonder as to how herediatry or genetic factors influence your risk of a heart attack in young age.

Well, a genetic condition results in the rapid formation of blood clot, thus posing a risk of heart attack.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

 An inherited condition that involves thickening of walls of the heart muscle, which can cause problems in the heart's electrical system. This often results in fast or irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias), which can lead to sudden cardiac death.

Sleep Disturbance

 Studies find that those who sleep less than 6 hours per night are 20% more likely to suffer a first heart attack. Besides, sleeping for more than 9 hours exposes you to a 34% higher heart attack risk.

Researchers claim that insomnia triggers stress response that could weaken the cardiovascular system and raise the risk of attack. 

Alcohol abuse

Substance abuse is inversely related to heart disease and poses a risk of a heart attack. Alcohol or substance addiction tightens the blood vessels, increases the heart rate and blood pressure, thus contributing to the factors linked with heart attacks.

Smoking

Wondering how smoking can pose a serious threat to your heart?  Well, science finds that your risk of a heart attack increases manifold if you smoke. In fact, it is reported that the risk increases in direct proportion to the number of cigarettes a person smokes. 

Smoking or nicotine puts a lot of pressure on blood vessels and narrows them, thus raising the risk of a heart attack.

Besides, nictoine and other substances in a cigarette tighten major vessels carrying blood to the heart, increase heart rate, and create irregularities in heartbeats.

If this is not enough, chemicals in cigarettes accumulate in the blood vessels and clog arteries. As a result, the heart does not get a constant supply of blood.

The story is the same with E-cigarettes that raise blood pressure and pose a serious threat of heart attack. 

Poor diet - insufficient nutrition

If you reach out to ready-to-eat junk food more often, then this poses a serious risk of heart disease. Eating too much of processed foods and excess sugar only adds to the calorie burden and accumulation. 

 Bad food choices raise the risk of food-related coronary heart disease. A diet rich in calories, saturated fat , salt, and sugar poses a higher risk for a heart attack or stroke due to its potential to raise bad cholesterol or LDL. 

Stress

Stress and heart attack are related. How? 

Well, stress is linked to an increased production of cortisol hormone. Cortisol is released by the body's natural response system. Research finds that long-term stress can cause high levels of cortisol, which threaten to increase blood cholesterol, blood sugar, triglycerides, and blood pressure.  Long-term stress can cause blood clotting problems and hinder the flow of blood to the heart muscle. 

This stress can also cause changes that promote the buildup of plaque deposits in the arteries.inflammation, which threatens to raise blood pressure that results in an increased pressure on the heart. 

Excessive physical activity

Research claims that high-intensity exercise can raise the risk for sudden cardiac arrest in people with any of the risk factors of heart disease. Prolonged strenuous exercise puts you at a high risk of atrial fibrillation, which is an irregular and rapid heart rate. Strenuous physical activity may result in 100-175 beats per minute, which threatens your heat.

lack of physical activity

Physical inactivity is linked to heart disease. Research warns that the more you sit, the higher your chances of heart disease and death. But why does this happen?

Well, a sedentary lifestyle exposes your heart disease risk by slowing down blood flow to the heart. As a result, fatty acids deposit in blood vessels, clogging arteries and threatening your heart health. 

Blood flow slows down, which allows fatty acids to build up in the blood vessels. This can lead to heart disease.

Besides, science finds that the production of lipoprotein that breaks down fat in the body is reduced due to a sedentary lifestyle.So your body is unable to use fat. When the body does not use fat, it gets accumulated on the liver. 

Diabetes

If you have diabetes, there is a high risk of heart attack due to the sudden spike in blood sugar levels that can damage the blood vessels. Not only this, it can cause fat build-up in the arteries. 

A diabetic patient is at a high risk of high blood pressure and high cholesterol. In fact, statistics find that diabetes raises your risk of a heart attack by 2-4 times.

High blood pressure, on the other hand, exposes your risk further by making your heart muscles thicken. It poses a risk to the blood vessels and raises your risk of cardiovascular disease, especially an attack.

Other causes

• structural abnormalities of heart - hypotrophic cardial myopathy, coronary artery abnormalities, long QT syndrome
• virus and other inflammations leading to inflammation of heart muscle (brugada syndrome)