'All Indians from age 17 must take this test': Narayana Health founder Dr. Devi Shetty explains why so many young people are dying of heart attacks

Every few weeks, a new video surfaces: a young man collapsing mid-run, a fitness enthusiast dropping to the floor during a workout, a marathoner who never crosses the finish line. The clips go viral, the shock lasts a news cycle, and then the country moves on, until the next one. Renowned cardiac surgeon Dr. Devi Shetty, founder of Narayana Health, says this cycle is entirely preventable, and it starts with a test most Indians never think to take.

'The Attacks Were Always There, We Just Didn't See Them'

Dr. Shetty pushes back on the idea that heart attacks among the young are a new phenomenon. In his view, cardiac disease in India has always struck early; what has changed is how much attention it now gets. Nearly half of all patients with blocked coronary arteries, he points out, show no symptoms at all before the attack hits. There is no chest pain, no early warning, nothing to send someone rushing to a hospital.

This blind spot is worse for India's enormous diabetic population. Diabetes dulls the nerve sensations that would normally alert a person to cardiac distress, meaning a diabetic can carry a serious blockage without ever feeling it. With India often described as the world's diabetes capital, that silent risk sits underneath a huge share of the population.

Fitness Is Not the Same as Cardiac Safety

The doctor's sharpest message is aimed at people who equate feeling healthy with being healthy. According to him, how fit someone believes they are has nothing to do with the actual state of their arteries, a person can run daily, eat clean, and still be carrying a life-threatening blockage. That gap in perception, he argues, is what sends people onto treadmills, into gyms, and onto marathon routes without ever getting screened.

Dr. Devi Shetty Heart Attack Five Prevention Tests

Dr. Devi Shetty claimed that nearly every case of a seemingly healthy person collapsing suddenly could have been avoided. A basic panel, a blood test, an ECG, an echocardiogram, and a cardiac CT scan, is enough to catch the blockage early, and all four are available at ordinary diagnostic centres. The problem, he says, isn't access. It's that most Indians only visit a doctor once pain forces them to, by which point it can already be too late.

The New Rule: Get Tested at 17

Dr. Shetty is now backing a screening timeline that starts far earlier than most people expect, in line with fresh guidance from the Cardiology Society of India:
Age 17: Every young Indian should undergo a basic blood test. Catching high cholesterol this early leaves plenty of room to correct it through diet alone, before it becomes a bigger problem.
Age 35–40: all men should begin routine cardiac testing, including a CT scan of the heart.
Age 30: anyone with a family history of heart disease should start screening immediately, rather than waiting.
Even earlier: Long-standing diabetics should be tested before turning 30, given how much diabetes raises cardiac risk.

His broader point: everyone should simply know their own numbers, blood pressure, cholesterol, and core heart metrics, the same way they know their weight or blood group.

Young Athletes Are Not as Safe as They Look

One of the more startling parts of Dr. Shetty's argument concerns competitive sport. He urges anyone stepping into intense athletic activity, even teenagers as young as 17 or 18, to get a full cardiac workup first, not just a routine fitness check.

To back this up, he points to data from FIFA: roughly 670 documented cardiac arrests among professional footballers over the past four years. These are elite athletes in peak physical condition, screened repeatedly by professional medical teams, and Dr. Shetty believes the undocumented figure could be ten times higher. His question to casual runners and weekend athletes is blunt: if trained footballers in their late teens and twenties are dropping from cardiac arrest at this rate, what makes anyone confident that amateur exertion is automatically safe?

Screening Once a Year Could Be All It Takes

Dr. Shetty's practical advice is simple. Rather than waiting for warning signs, which, as he notes, often never appear until it's too late, people should get the core cardiac tests done once a year. If a CT scan comes back clear, he says, there's generally no need to worry again for another seven to ten years.

It's a message aimed less at hospitals and more at everyday habits: the difference between a preventable tragedy and a long life, in many cases, may come down to a single hour spent at a diagnostic lab.