Smoking and High BP Common in Younger Patients with Recurrent Heart Attacks

Risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure lead to recurrent heart attacks in younger patients.

Younger patients with severe modifiable risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure have recurrent heart attacks, reveals a study presented at the American College of Cardiology Asia Conference 2018 in Shanghai.

"When treating //younger patients with a history of heart attack, clinicians should emphasize better control of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes," said Joanne Karen Recacho-Turingan, MD, a Cardiology Fellow at The Medical City in Manila, Philippines. "Other modifiable risk factors to highlight in patient history and address with these patients include smoking habits and obesity."

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Heart attack is the death of the heart muscle due to loss of blood supply. Simple guidelines to avoid heart attack are listed.

‘Heart diseases in younger patients often lead to disability and sometimes even death, hence, secondary preventive programs should target mainly on modifiable risk factors.’

Researchers analyzed 133 young patients admitted at The Medical City for a heart attack between 2013 and 2016. During the study period 22 patients had a re-occurrence. All patients who experienced a second heart attack were male with an average age of 40.9 years. Patients who did not experience a re-occurrence were 90.1 percent male and 9.9 percent female with an average age of 39.6 years.

Risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, family history of heart disease and chronic kidney disease were more prevalent among the patients who experienced a re-occurrence. In these patients, chest pain was the most common presenting symptom at 81.8 percent while 90.9 percent had unstable vital signs at the time of admission.

"Heart attack in young patients can cause disability and even death at the prime of life," Recacho-Turingan said. "There are often serious consequences for these patients, their families and the health system, which can lead to an increased economic burden. We must make sure to work with these patients on their modifiable risk factors to reduce their risk not just for a second heart attack, but hopefully, even preventing the first."

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Lipid profile test/screening is done by measuring total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and LDL – cholesterol levels in the blood.

Previous studies have defined young heart attack patients as less than 45 years old while some used a less than 40-year old cut-off. Prior research has found these patients have a high prevalence of smoking, family history and high cholesterol.