A few minutes into the walk, he felt an acute pain in the chest and began to sweat profusely. “I couldn’t stand,” Ghosh recalls, “and had to be rushed to hospital.”

Doctors termed the pain ‘angina’ — chest pain due to lack of blood and oxygen supply to heart muscles. Ghosh soon discovered he was at massive risk of a heart attack. “I have no family history of the disease so it came as a rude shock,” he says.

In the next nine months, he was operated upon thrice — twice for angioplasty and once for an open-heart surgery. “After my first angioplasty, I felt the pain again and was advised an open-heart surgery. Within the next six months, I underwent another angioplasty.”

Post-surgery, Ghosh, now 43, lives on a strict diet and morning walks, apart from a heavy dose of medicines. The cost: Rs 4, 000 every month. And, every six months, he turns up at the Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRC), Okhla, for a complete cardiac check-up.

Government figures say heart diseases claim the highest number of lives in Delhi after respiratory diseases each year: in 2007, it claimed 8,576 lives. And as per figures available with the Delhi government’s Directorate of Health Services, it affects more men than women (see box).

Patients get younger

Dr Suman Bhandari, the cardiac surgeon treating Ghosh at the hospital, says his case is not an isolated instance: the number of young men affected by heart diseases has seen a quantum jump over the past decade. “A decade back, heart patients in the 25-35 age bracket were 10 per cent of the total number,” Dr Bhandari says. “But now they constitute about 40 per cent of heart patients I see.”

Five per cent of all patients admitted for cardiac surgery at EHIRC for coronary intervention or medical management of heart attacks and heart diseases during the past one year were 18 years or below, doctors say. “This was out of question ten years ago. Now, young people, most of them chain-smokers, come to us with heart attacks or coronary heart problems,” Dr Bhandari says.

Dr S K Gupta, cardiac surgeon at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, says 30 out of every 100 patients he sees are between 20 and 25 years. And, “at least four or five patients are even younger — less than 20.”

Apollo Hospital received 26,803 patients with heart diseases in the last two years. In 2007, heart disease cases were 23 per cent of total medical cases attended to by the hospital.

“Young executives in their early ’30s are battling with a lot of stress in workplace; they eat junk, rich food and do not find time to exercise,” says Dr U Kaul, HoD, Cardiology, Flight Lt Rajan Dhall Hospital, Vasant Kunj. “This is playing havoc on their health. And men are more prone, for women are protected by reproductive hormones.”

Hope floats

But science has offered some hope — in Ghosh’s case, for instance.

“Today, we do angiography, open-heart surgery and angioplasty. Then, there are drugs for treatment,” Dr Gupta says. “There is more awareness on the disease. But one must be rushed to the nearest hospital at the first hint of problem.”

Treatments, though, come at a cost: Ghosh spent about Rs 5 lakh on three surgeries. Besides, most hospitals either do not offer angioplasty — they do not have enough patients for a team of doctors to maintain their skills — or the treatment is simply too expensive to afford.

“An obvious solution would be that the government policies treat heart attack care more like trauma care — sending patients to the nearest hospital that can provide angioplasty as quickly as possible,” Dr Bhandari says. “But there are very few awareness initiatives.”

Killerheart
* 8,576 died in Delhi in 2007:
*Women: 3,072 I Men: 5,504
* Low mortality in Delhi’s rural areas: Men: 457
* Women: 211