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.
Data shows that heart attack cases are on the rise, Dr Bhatt said, but doctors are still disagreeing over what could be causing the uptick
Chloe Burke went into cardiac arrest at 21 years old while cheering at the University of Houston. She is now educating others about cardiac arrest
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.
Years later, a 38 year old triathlete named Matias Escobar collapsed at the finish line of the New York City Triathlon in 2023.
He was without a pulse for 12 minutes, and doctors found out that the father of one had suffered from a widow-maker heart attack, a particularly deadly type.
He went into a coma and had emergency surgery, and doctors couldn’t determine what had caused the problem in the first place.
Similarly, Raquel Hutt, a 24 year old from New York who developed severe shooting pain in her left arm while using the bathroom in August 2024, describing it as the ‘worst pain of my life.’
Still, EMT’s and medical staff dismissed her symptoms, and told her she was suffering from a panic attack.
Eventually, they conceded and tests showed that Ms Hutt had suffered from an unexplained, massive heart attack.
Not only are they becoming more common, more young people are dying, which may be because doctors are not used to seeing such young patients.
A 2024 study from Duke found the number of people of all ages who died from heart failure has been steadily increasing – from 82 deaths per 100,000 people in 2012 to 106 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021.
That rise was greatest in adults under 45, who saw a 905 percent increase in the number of people who died from a heart complication over the nine-year study period.
Matias Escobar nearly died while competing in the New York City Triathlon. Doctors said his vital signs offered no clues – cholesterol and blood pressure had all checked out prior to competing
Ms Hutt shared on TikTok that she was invalidated by emergency staff and forced to sit in the waiting room while suffering through severe pain from her heart attack
Dr Susan Cheng is a cardiologist at Cedars Sinai who authored a 2023 study that found heart attack deaths in people 25 to 44 increased by nearly 30 percent during the early years of the pandemic.
She said at the time that the connection between COVID-19 and heart attack deaths was ‘more than coincidental.’
‘Young people are obviously not really supposed to die of heart attack. They’re not really supposed to have heart attacks at all.’
She added: ‘There are a lot of things that COVID can do to the cardiovascular system. It appears to be able to increase the stickiness of the blood and increase… the likelihood of blood clot formation.
‘It seems to stir up inflammation in the blood vessels. It seems to also cause in some people an overwhelming stress—whether it’s related directly to the infection or situations around the infection—that can also cause a spike in blood pressure.’
Cheng said people who have Covid multiple times also are at higher risk of heart problems. She emphasized keeping blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar under control.
In addition to stressors from COVID, Dr Bhatt suggested that substance abuse habits in younger generations could be contributing to the increase. ‘I hate to say it, but you know there is more substance abuse these days,’ Dr Bhatt said.
Vaping, cocaine and even marijuana use can all potentially contribute to an increased risk for blood clots and in turn, heart attack.
Finally, levels of obesity and diabetes in younger people have been steadily rising since the dawn of the 21st century.
The rates of diabetes in people under 45 doubled from 1995 to 2015, according to the American Diabetes Association.
In addition, obesity rates in Americans aged 20 to 44 moved from 32 percent in 2009 to 40 percent in 2020, a study from the American Medical Association reported.
Both of these factors can increase someone’s likelihood of developing cardiac complications – like heart attack – because they tend to raise blood pressure and put more strain on the heart.
Also, some doctors, like Dr Noel Bairey Merz, a cardiology professor at Cedars Sinai, suggest that modern eating habits which rely on fast food could be contributing to the ‘diabesity epidemic’.
Dr Bairey Merz told Yahoo Life that since younger people are more likely to have grown up eating fast food and highly processed snacks than older generations, they may be more at risk for developing lifestyle conditions which may lead to heart attack.
There are also steps young people can take to reduce their risk of ever ending up in this position.
Dr Bairey Merz recommends doing your best to manage your weight by getting regular exercise and eating a well rounded diet.
In addition, getting plenty of sleep and managing stress is crucial to managing heart attack risk, Dr Bhatt said.
