Heart Attacks Affect Younger And Fatter Americans

Younger and fatter adults are more prone to get heart attacks, according to a new study on more than 3,900 patients at Cleveland Clinic from 1995 to 2014. The younger and fatter adults faced many preventable risk factors, such as "smoking status, high blood pressure (hypertension) and type 2 diabetes."

The average age of a patient with an ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) dropped from 64 to 60, even as the percentage of patients in the obese category rose from 31 to 40 percent. With plaque blocking a main artery in the heart, it can lead to a STEMI heart attack.

With additional obesity, patients tend to also get exposed to diabetes, hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which increased from 24 to 31 percent, 55 to 77 percent and 5 to 12 percent.

There was also an increase in smoking, especially as the national smoking rate has been reducing over two decades. The percentage of smokers also increased from 28 to 46 percent.

It is important to alter lifestyles.

"On the whole, the medical community has done an outstanding job of improving treatments for heart disease, but this study shows that we have to do better on the prevention side," said Samir Kapadia, professor of medicine and section head for interventional cardiology at Cleveland Clinic. "When people come for routine checkups, it is critical to stress the importance of reducing risk factors through weight reduction, eating a healthy diet and being physically active."

Kapadia added, "Prevention must be kept in the forefront of primary care. Cardiac health is not just dependent on the cardiologist. The primary care physicians and the patient need to take ownership of this problem."

The study's findings will be presented at the ACC's 65th Annual Scientific Session in April 2016.