Heart Attacks Without Known Risk Factors
ST‐Segment–Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) Patients Without Standard Modifiable Cardiovascular Risk Factors—How Common Are They, and What Are Their Outcomes?
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
People without any traditional risk factors are more likely to die in the hospital after a heart attack than those with multiple risk factors.
Common wisdom says high blood pressure, smoking, or diabetes make heart attacks worse — but here, the 'healthier' patients fared worse initially.
Practical Takeaways
Even if you’re healthy, pay attention to chest pain, shortness of breath, or unexplained fatigue — they could signal a heart attack.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
People without any traditional risk factors are more likely to die in the hospital after a heart attack than those with multiple risk factors.
Common wisdom says high blood pressure, smoking, or diabetes make heart attacks worse — but here, the 'healthier' patients fared worse initially.
Practical Takeaways
Even if you’re healthy, pay attention to chest pain, shortness of breath, or unexplained fatigue — they could signal a heart attack.
Publication
Journal
Journal of the American Heart Association: Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Disease
Year
2019
Authors
S. Vernon, S. Coffey, M. D'Souza, C. Chow, J. Kilian, K. Hyun, J. Shaw, M. Adams, P. Roberts-Thomson, D. Brieger, G. Figtree
Related Content
Claims (5)
Nearly 1 in 5 people having their first major heart attack didn’t have any of the usual risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, or smoking — meaning many heart attacks happen in people doctors wouldn’t have flagged as high-risk.
Heart attack patients who don’t have common risk factors like high blood pressure or smoking might actually be more likely to die in the hospital than those who do have those risks — which seems surprising, but that’s what this claim says.
More people having their first major heart attack don’t have the usual risk factors like high blood pressure or smoking — and that number went up from about 1 in 7 to 1 in 4 over 18 years.
Guys are more likely than girls to have a certain kind of heart attack even if they don’t have the usual risk factors like high blood pressure or smoking — 20% of men versus 15% of women who’ve never had a heart attack before fall into this group.
For heart attack patients, having common risk factors like high blood pressure or smoking doesn’t seem to make their chances of future heart problems any worse over the next six months — especially once you account for how sick they were at the time of the heart attack.