Heart Attack Age Statistics
Heart attacks can happen to anyone at any age.
There are certain demographics that are more likely to experience cardiac arrest, though, with older people generally more at risk than younger generations. Weight, diet and fitness also play have a significant effect on how likely you are to be struck down.
Heart attack age statistics are a sometimes interesting and often sobering read. Unless noted to the contrary, all statistics are from case studies in the United States. Please skip to the bottom of this page for a full chart of heart attack incidents categorized by age of the patient.
Unfortunately, surviving the heart attack itself is only the first step towards recovery: many people die suddenly in the weeks after the attack. Women are much more likely than men to die within a few weeks of a heart attack. Within a year of a heart attack, in those aged 40 or over, 18 percent of men and 23 percent of women will die; if you extend this window to 5 years then 33 percent of men and 43 percent of women will die.
Heart Attacks: Unfair To Women?
Women of all ages are generally less prone to heart attacks than men, but they are more likely to die from the attack. Factors contributing to this disharmony include higher blood pressures and cholesterol levels.
The average age for a woman to have a first heart attack is 70 (compared to 68 over the whole population), with the risk increasing quickly after this age. There are around 20,000 women under the age of 45 hospitalized by heart attacks every year in the United States.
Ladies aged 65 and over are the most likely to suffer a heart attack, with around 370,000 women hospitalized every year. Part of the reason behind these high numbers is the astonishing 21 million women in the same age group that suffer high blood pressure. The menopause puts extra stress on the body, and this is thought to account for some of the disparity.
As alluded to above, heart attacks are more rare in younger people, but they do happen. Statistics from Australia show that 0.13% of heart attacks requiring hospitalization occur in males aged 15 to 24; 0.95% occur in makes aged 25 to 34, and 6.1% occur in males aged 35 to 44. The proportions per age group quickly rise for men aged 45 and over.
As can be seen in the table below, figures in the US show that 3 people out 100,000 in the 0 to 34 age group will suffer a heart attack. These numbers do not seem particularly high, but the statistics mask the horror and anguish caused by these untimely deaths.
Some Statistics for 2005 (Recorded in New York State)
Finally, we present these figures showing the incident rate per 10,000 of hospitalizing heart attacks. These figures are taken over New York State in America.
|Age Group||Rate Per 10,000 People|
|0 - 34||0.3|
|35 - 44||6.7|
|45 - 54||18.7|
|55 - 64||37.4|
|65 - 74||66.7|
|75 - 84||116.2|