ST. George — Last summer, Nick Schultz thought he had eaten something bad.

He felt nauseous and had severe heartburn that nothing he did could relieve it and his heart felt like it was going to jump out of his chest like a scene from Alien.

But Schultz was a healthy 47-year-old who excelled at jiu-jitsu and wrestling and was an active runner. So he thought things would get better. That wasn’t the case. he was having a heart attack.

“I didn’t even know I was having a heart attack in the first place. Part of the problem was that I ignored the symptoms, maybe even denied them, and waited too long to get treatment. ” Schultz said.

Schultz, who was traveling to Idaho at the time, received emergency treatment there. He said he had heartburn and they treated him for his condition.

“Honestly, for a while I thought I had some really bad food poisoning. It felt like that for the rest of the day until I started feeling a tingling sensation in my left arm,” he said.

The next day after feeling tingly, he went to the emergency room, where it was discovered that he had been having a heart attack for more than a day.

Although COVID-19 has largely subsided in 2020 and 2021, heart disease remains the leading cause of death for people of all ages in the United States. But it’s young people who have made the biggest changes.

a Multi-state study According to the American Heart Association, 30% of the more than 28,000 patients hospitalized for heart attacks between 1995 and 2014 were between the ages of 35 and 54. More importantly, they found that the proportion of people having heart attacks was getting younger and younger, from 27% at the start of the study to 32% at the end of the study. And the increase was especially noticeable among young women.

The good news is that while the number of heart attacks in people under 54 is increasing, the annual number of deaths from heart attacks in that age group has been trending downward since 2003 and after a brief increase in 2020. That means there is. And 2021 has fallen since then.

But there are still people like Schultz who are confused as to why he had a heart attack before he was 50. It was just as shocking for his wife and five children.

“I live a healthy lifestyle, I live a happy lifestyle, and it just doesn’t make sense to me. How could this happen to me?” Schultz said. . “I exercise, eat healthy, and don’t smoke. I do everything I have to do.”

“Don’t ignore me.”

Nicholas Witwer, a cardiologist and physician assistant at St. George Regional Hospital, was one of Schultz’s supporters when he returned to southern Utah. Since then, he has helped Schultz adjust to life after the heart attack. That includes supplements and medications, a straight diet, and, as Schultz says, plenty of exercise and an active lifestyle that he continued to live anyway.

Witwer said just because heart attacks are on the rise in people under 50 doesn’t mean all young people should suddenly rush to the ER if they experience chest pain. However, if signs and symptoms persist for longer than necessary, they should not be ignored.

“If you’re a young person who doesn’t have a lot of risk factors, when you get a little bit of heat in your chest, your first thought probably isn’t, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to die.’ It’s a heart attack,” Witwer said. Ta. “If you’re taking Tums because you think it’s heartburn, or you’ve tried everything and it’s not getting better, don’t ignore it. Although it’s very unlikely that a teenager will have a heart attack, Heart attacks have also occurred in many people in their 20s, 30s, and even 40s.

“You can’t predict who’s going to have a heart attack or who’s going to have symptoms, but if you get a tingling sensation every time you walk up the stairs, you can’t ignore it.”

Although Schultz appeared to be in good health and led an active lifestyle, there was a silent killer lurking inside his heart that could only be detected through a blood test.

And he didn’t have any blood tests done.

Schultz’s cholesterol levels were elevated. Witwer said that was likely the cause of the heart attack. That’s why it’s important to have a blood test as part of your annual health checkup, he stressed.

“Your doctor can help order certain screening tests to help stratify your risk. These include blood tests, blood tests. We have some new modalities like x-ray scans (which create detailed scans of “We also have what’s called a Rapid Access Cardiology Specialist Line, where your doctor can call and ask a cardiologist any time Monday through Friday if you have questions for your doctor.”

You can also get a rough idea of ​​whether you’re at risk for heart disease at any age using an online test from Intermountain Health, the parent company of St. George Regional Hospital.

The quiz is this linkSo, to determine whether someone is at high risk of having a heart attack in their lifetime, we ask some basic questions, primarily about their family health history, and if they do have a heart attack, they ask their doctor. I recommend that you see a doctor.

Why do young people have heart attacks?

There are many mysteries in medicine. Witwer said that’s not the only reason young people have heart attacks. He says there’s a lot of research showing the answer lies in the drive-thrus and the Cap’n Crunch and Lucky Charms aisles at the markets where baby boomers grew up.

It’s food.

“You can read all the research on childhood obesity and all that stuff and diabetes developing at a young age,” Witwer says. “We seek out easy and convenient foods, but those aren’t necessarily the healthiest foods. Cheap foods aren’t the healthiest foods for us. Overall, Americans’ eating habits are I think it’s a big factor in the prevalence of heart disease.”

He added that Schultz may have suffered a heart attack in his 30s because he did not follow a typical American diet, a healthy diet.

“He probably already delayed his heart attack by more than 10 years.”

Witwer said genetics also can’t be ignored.That’s it. online quiz Some of us may be able to escape our parents’ terrible hairstyles through high school photos and music choices, but we cannot escape our parents’ emotional history. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are factors that can cause a person in their 40s to have the heart of an 80-year-old.

“(Schultz’s) father had a heart attack in his 50s. Now he gave birth in his 40s,” Witwer said. “His children need to be careful.”

However, contrary to some on social media, Witwer said there is little to no evidence that the coronavirus vaccine or any other vaccine is causing an increase in heart attacks in people under 50. said.

“Heart attacks in young people were happening before vaccines and before COVID-19, and they’re still happening after,” he said, adding that the number of heart attacks among people under 55 hasn’t flattened since 2020. However, he pointed out that the number is decreasing. Overall in his 15 year trend, that number was already more than triple what he was before Y2K.

Warning to friends

Since his heart attack, Schultz has spent more time in the hospital. But it’s not just because of his follow-up.

Schultz, who already had a career in marketing in the medical industry, became the hospital’s marketing manager last September.

But at the same time he’s promoting his hospital, he’s also promoting heart health to his family and friends.

“Some of my friends don’t see their primary care physician. Maybe they don’t get tested regularly at their annual visit,” Schultz says. “And now they’re thinking, ‘Maybe I should look into this.’ Maybe they can’t just go out to eat every night and eat all processed food. I have to start thinking about it.”

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