Beating at the rate of 30 beats a minute for three days, Amit Gupta’s heart had almost given up.

When he finally went to a general physician to get medicines for what he assumed was ‘viral fever’, an ECG revealed that he had suffered a heart attack the previous night.

Coming from a family of cardiac surgeons, Gupta thought he would know when he was having an attack.

“Even though I could feel each and every beat, I assumed it was a viral infection or something because I did not have the classic symptoms of chest pain or sweating,” he said. “I thought I could have a lot of things but not a heart attack since I did not even have a family history.”

According to experts, the so-called “silent” heart attacks are either completely asymptomatic or have mild symptoms which the patient dismisses as indigestion or heartburn — which is what happened in Gupta’s case.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently stated one in every four heart attacks will happen without any symptoms or at least none that the victim associates with a heart problem.

It was based on a study — published in the Journal of the American College of Chest Physicians — and conducted at Duke University Medical Center, US. It evaluated patients with coronary artery disease, but without any previous evidence of heart attack.

Over a two-year follow-up, it was observed that patients who suffered silent heart attack had triple the death rate compared to other cardiac patients, mainly because they are less likely to receive medications to slow the progression of a heart attack in time as the attack is asymptomatic.

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