Heart Attacks Are Rising in Young Adults

Research does show that heart attacks, also called myocardial infarctions, are on the rise in younger people. Common symptoms include chest pain or discomfort; pain that radiates into the jaw, neck, back or arms; shortness of breath; and feeling weak or faint. A study of more than 2,000 young adults admitted for heart attack between 2000 and 2016 in two U.S. hospitals found that 1 in 5 were 40 years old or younger — and that the proportion of this group has been increasing by 2 percent each year for the last decade.

The study, published in 2019 in the American Journal of Medicine, also found that people ages 40 or younger who have had a heart attack are just as likely as older adults to die from another heart attack, stroke, or other reason. In fact, increases in heart disease among younger adults in 2020 and 2021 are responsible for more than 4 percent of the most recent declines in life expectancy in the U.S., according to an editorial published in March in JAMA Network. The problem isn’t uniquely American. Research shows that adults in Pakistan and India, for example, are also experiencing heart attacks at younger ages.