1% Indian adults affected by heart failure: Doc

Flagging India’s growing cardiac disease burden, Dr KK Talwar, a Padma Bhushan awardee, has said heart failure has emerged as one of the nation’s fastest-rising health challenges, affecting an estimated 8 to 10 million adults — 1 per cent of India’s adult population.

“The figures are not just numbers, but a reflection of the silent epidemic gripping the country,” he said.

He was speaking during a special session of the Dr Santosh Uppal Heart Foundation at the recently held AMACON conference.

Dr Talwar said Indian patients were witnessing heart failure at a younger age as compared to Western ones, largely due to uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, obesity, sedentary lifestyles, excessive stress, air pollution, and the late detection of heart disease. He said nearly 50 per cent heart failure patients did not survive beyond five years of diagnosis if treatment was delayed — making timely identification and long-term management crucial.

“The challenge is that many patients ignore early symptoms such as breathlessness, swelling in feet, fatigue, or sudden weight gain, attributing them to age or routine stress,” Dr Talwar added. He also spoke about the new developments in heart-failure treatment, pointing out that India now had access to advanced drug therapies, minimally invasive procedures, cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT), implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), and ventricular assist devices (VADs).

In severe cases, heart transplantation remained the definitive option, though the availability of donor organs continued to be a major limitation.

Dr Talwar urged the public to adopt preventive measures, including regular heart screenings after the age of 40, early management of blood pressure and diabetes, quitting smoking, and maintaining healthy body weight.

He said community-level awareness programmes for heart failure must become as widespread as those for diabetes and cancer, to reduce India’s rising heart failure load. The annual conference, organised by the Amritsar Medical Association (AMA) at Hotel Radisson Blu this year, brought together specialists from a wide range of medical fields across Amritsar and neighbouring regions.

AMA president Dr Ashok Uppal said the objective of the event was to hold in-depth discussions on rapid advancements in medical science, rising diseases, modern treatment options, and the transformative role of technology in healthcare.

The conference covered subjects from ‘head to toe’, including sessions on AI in healthcare; surrogacy; heart diseases; neurological disorders; and joint ailments.

Several dignitaries, including former Deputy Chief Minister Om Parkash Soni and Mayor Jatinder Singh, attended the event, lauding the medical community’s commitment to public service.