Vim & Vigor - Spring 2020 - UVA - 13

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inflammation of the membrane surrounding
the heart that typically resolves on its own, and
he shouldn't worry. He scheduled Wolverton
for a heart catheterization, a diagnostic exam
that involves inserting a thin tube through
a blood vessel to internally examine the heart.
Finally, during the heart catheterization,
the cardiologist discovered the scary truth:
Wolverton had experienced a massive heart
attack in his left anterior descending artery,
a blockage so often deadly that physicians
refer to it as the "widowmaker."
"All of a sudden, [the cardiologist] just goes,
'Oh, my God! Your widowmaker's 99.9 percent
blocked,'" Wolverton says. "He said he'd only
seen that one other time in a patient so young."

WHAT'S CAUSING
EARLY HEART ATTACKS?

ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID MILAN

A third of heart attack
survivors say chest
pain wasn't one of their
symptoms, according
to the American College
of Cardiology

Heart attacks are declining overall, including
in adults 65 and older, but they're on the rise
in younger people.
The annual number of first-time heart
attacks in adults ages 65 and older has been
declining since the 1960s.
But the number of heart attacks that
occur in people younger than 40 is
increasing. Of the people who have
a heart attack before age 50, 1 in
5 are age 40 or younger, and the
proportion has increased each
year for the past 10 years, according to a study co-authored by Ron
Blankstein, MD, a member of the
American College of Cardiology's
Prevention of Cardiovascular
Disease Section.
"When you look at why there are
fewer heart attacks in general, some
of it we attribute to wider use of medications like blood thinners and statins
that lower cholesterol. And some of it has
to do with the fact that there's less smoking than there used to be," Blankstein says.
(Smoking is a contributor to heart disease.)
"But then we ask, 'With the advances we've
made in the field of cardiology, why do they
seem to be less applicable to individuals who
are younger than 50?' "
In reality, it's not that the advances are less
applicable. It's that people are doing more
damage to their hearts earlier in life by eating

Opioids Could
Cause Heart
Trouble in
Young Adults

Opioids are prescribed
by doctors to help people manage pain, but the
drugs have a dark side,
too. Abuse of opioids-
which include the pain
medicines OxyContin and
fentanyl and the illegal
substance heroin-leads to
a host of health problems,
such as addiction and
death from overdose.
What's more, new
research shows opioid use
also can increase the risk
of a heart condition that
leads to stroke in younger
adults, according to findings
presented to the American
Heart Association in 2018.
A study analyzed health
data from 857,000 U.S. veterans ages 25 to 51 and found
a correlation between
opioid use and increased
incidence of atrial fibrillation (AFib), an irregular and
rapid heartbeat that usually doesn't show up until
after age 65. Researchers
calculated that opioid use
raised study participants'
risk of AFib by 34 percent,
"drastically" increasing
their risk for stroke, according to the American College
of Cardiology.
If you have chronic pain
or have an illness, an injury
or a procedure for which
you require pain management, talk to your doctor
about opioid alternatives. If
opioids are prescribed, take
the smallest dose for the
shortest time possible to
avoid dependency.

VIM & VIGOR SPRING 2020
Vim & Vigor - Spring 2020 - UVA

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