New Delhi: A perfectly fit and fine person who is going about their routine day dies of a sudden heart attack. No warnings and no ultimatum, but a tragic end. This is no longer mere fiction but glooming reality.Being lean, fit and muscular are no longer the best indicators of good health. Why, you ask? Because a perfectly healthy person may be a hot oven, marinating several diseases inside their body, including cardiovascular ones.
Take for example, the recent case of Days of Our Lives star Patrick Muldoon. The 57-year-old otherwise healthy actor, who was super active on Instagram, a couple of days before his death, died suddenly on April 19.
Another case in point is 30-year-old Haryanvi actor Divyanka Sirohi who, too, died of a sudden heart attack, just two days after Muldoon’s death, on April 21.
And these are not one-off instances, Reema Lagoo, Shefali Jariwala and Sidharth Shukla, all met the same doomed fate — with their cause of deaths revealed to be sudden heart attacks.
Several cricketers, too, who are believed to be the most healthy among others, have suffered heart attacks in the past few years.
With the rise in such unfortunate cases, the glaring question is why healthy or fit-looking people die of heart attack and cardiac arrests? Are there any warning signs that were missed? Or did death grip them silently?
The most basic explanation is that high LDL leads to plaque buildup that narrows arteries and increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes, even if you are meeting your daily goal of 10,000 steps.
Dr Rajendra Chavan, MBBS MD DM Cardiology, Apollo Clinic, Nigdi, tells you that heart attack or stroke can happen to anyone, including people who seem healthy.
“Heart disease can be silent, meaning it may not give you any indication you should see your doctor,” Dr Chavan said.
Dr Chirag D, Consultant – Interventional Cardiology, Aster Whitefield Hospitals, said that, as opposed to the common belief, even someone who appears lean, exercises regularly, and have no obvious symptoms, can still carry underlying structural or electrical abnormalities of the heart.
“This is possible, and it is one of the most misunderstood aspects of heart health today. Our work as cardiologists establishes that physical fitness assessments do not provide accurate measurements of a person’s internal vascular system condition. Conditions such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or inherited rhythm disorders can remain silent for years and may only present during a sudden cardiac event,” Dr Chirag explained.
He added that most of these medical situations do not involve standard heart attacks which result from arterial blockages because they lead to immediate cardiac arrests which stem from heart electrical system disruptions.
Dr Chirag pointed out that there’s a reason why healthy people experience dangerous heart problems without any warning signs.
“A recent research published in 2025 studying athletes found that microscopic abnormalities in heart tissue were present in a significant proportion of individuals who had normal routine tests, suggesting that conventional screening may miss subtle but clinically important risks,” Dr Chirag added.
Complex signs
Some of the hidden causes of heart attacks in otherwise healthy people, Dr Chirag said, are complex.
“In individuals who appear healthy, the causes are often less visible and more complex. Genetic and inherited conditions are among the most important contributors, including disorders that affect the structure of the heart muscle or its electrical system. These conditions may not produce symptoms until they are triggered by exertion, stress, or illness,” he said.
Also, low-grade inflammation and past viral infections like myocarditis create symptoms that damage heart function without showing any visible indicators.
“The present-day way of living has a major impact on health. Many people combine long hours of sedentary work with intermittent high-intensity exercise which can trigger problems when people have hidden health issues,” Dr Chirag opined.
What not to miss
Dr Pradeep Haranahalli, Consultant – Interventional Cardiology, Manipal Hospital Whitefield, said that the age-old saying goes sound mind and sound body. However, the current cardiac health scenario compels us not to say sound heart and sound body.
The real danger lies in the fact that most patients are sensitive to the classical textbook picture of anginal chest pain. However, often they tend to mistake or miss some of the subtle symptoms.
“Unexplained fatigue, dizziness or fainting attacks, or some not-so-classical just pain symptoms, like pain only in the hand, pain in the neck, or back pain. Pain in the jaw may often be mistaken for not being associated with a heart problem,” he said.
Another similar circumstance can be where people feel upper abdominal pain as gastric or heartburn, advised to consult a gastroenterologist, or may continue to take antacids for a longer time.
Neglecting to consider such symptoms could be cardiac as well. Some of the other common symptoms that may go ignored are people failing to recognise that they were able to tolerate a certain level of physical activity but now has suddenly become symptomatic with the same level of activity. So these are all some vital clues to escalate the matter for further evaluation,” Dr Pradeep advised.
