When Dave Died from a Heart Attack at a Young Age, I Was Deeply Sad But Not Surprised

Poor lifestyle patterns and five hedonistic tendencies filling the void indicate risks of cardiometabolic disorders

When I met Dave years ago, he was 20 years younger than me. He applied for a graduate program our company opened for high achievers in technology and leadership from top Australian universities.

As an ambitious graduate with high distinctions in all subjects, Dave demonstrated outstanding knowledge, skills, and passion for technology business.

In addition to his intellectual capabilities, as he also sounded bubbly, highly optimistic, and had a great sense of humor, in the selection committee, my vote was 100% for his potential to contribute to our team.

During the interview, he depicted a cheerful demeanor. He physically looked healthy and fit and mentally sharp. He got excited and enthusiastically joined us when we offered him the position.

During his first three years, he made significant progress in his professional development. He married at a young age and bought a house paying the bank deposit with his three-year savings.

As his team leader, I had a chance to observe his behavior. He initially got along well with everyone, but people started to be concerned about his workaholic attitude. Then his behavior noticeably changed. He looked irritated, frustrated, impatient, and dissatisfied with his life.

Team members started complaining about his disappointing behavior. He stopped looking after himself and started risky behaviors like smoking and consuming too much alcohol. He looked awful in the morning, showing sleep deprivation.

Finally, after a year, he submitted his resignation and informed us he had found a much better-paying job moving away from technology to a project management role.

His abrupt career change decision sounded too radical to the team. Everyone was concerned, but no one was able to influence him.

He decided to migrate from Australia to a highly populated Asian country as a project manager. His partner was unhappy with his decision. Later we heard that they got divorced.

I haven’t heard from Dave for several years, but he stayed in touch with a few close friends. Those who knew him got very concerned about his poor lifestyle in his new job in a new country. He struggled to cope with excessive work and relationship stress. The divorce broke his heart.

His friends mentioned he had no interest in fitness. His diet was poor. He gained excessive weight and became obese. His stress levels increased as he couldn’t cope with the demanding pressure of his new job. Worst of all, he started smoking more and drinking too much alcohol to fill the void.

His friends recommended that he return to Australia and get back to his technical work, which he distinguished himself from his peers.

But he refused, wanting to become rich in his new executive role there, allowing him to earn bonus income from his frequent travels to other Asian countries. He aimed to retire young and come back to Australia after that.

When I heard the details of his lifestyle from his other friends during a social occasion, I felt extremely sorry for him. Therefore, I emailed him to touch base and offered to contact me if he needed help as his former colleague, but I did not hear from him.

After a month, I sent another email and awaited a response. Then a few weeks later, at another social event, I met one of his friends, Alfonso, and asked how Dave was doing at the dinner table.

Alfonso looked into my eyes with deep sadness and remained silent at our noisy table, with people cheering for the event.

A few moments after, his eyes were full of tears which he tried to hide from me. Then I asked him to go out and have a chat.

We walked outside. After a bit of chit-chat, Alfonso finally told me that Dave had a heart attack on a stressful day at work and died in an ambulance before he was taken to the emergency department.

Naturally, this awful news made me extremely sad, but learning about his problematic lifestyle did not surprise me as the patterns indicated the possibility of such a dramatic outcome.

As I covered under five headings, he made apparent mistakes in every domain of his lifestyle.

In the next sections, I will briefly outline the key patterns I documented from this sad incident for awareness and information purposes, focusing only on the critical points.

As I wrote about cardiometabolic disorders and their associations with mental health disorders like depression and anxiety, I will not repeat them in this article. I explained the association mechanisms via HPA Axis, Brain-Gut Axis, and Endocrine Glands in the linked articles.

1 — Sedentary Life

From my observations, this one was the most apparent contributor to Dave’s situation. He was a very active person when he graduated.

Suddenly stopping exercise and having a sedentary lifestyle caused him to gain excessive weight and increase his blood sugar and pressure levels, causing damage to his heart muscles.

Exercise is important to make the body insulin sensitive, strengthen the heart muscle, improve blood flow, and lower the risks of blood clots.

Without movement, the body becomes insulin resistant, gains more visceral fat, lose lean muscle mass and weakens heart muscles.

2 — Physical, Mental, and Emotional Stress

Lack of exercise seemed to cause sleep disturbances for Dave. Before that, he had a lot of stress in his school years, but he was active and slept well. Therefore, he was healthy until he stopped exercising.

In addition to this physical stress, Dave also had mental stress due to his radical shift moving from a stretch zone to a danger zone, which I explained in a previous article. Living in a danger zone indicates cardiovascular disorders, which happened to multiple ambitious entrepreneurs in my circle.

Oxidative stress caused by sleep deprivation can contribute to chronic inflammation, elevate cortisol levels, prevent fat burning, lead to muscle loss, and increase blood pressure and heart rate, causing damage to endothelial cells and heart muscles.

3 — Nutritional Deficiencies and Empty Calories

When I met Dave, he used to eat a balanced diet. But he gradually changed and started to consume too much junk food and refined carbs from sugary foods and drinks.

Since he got too many empty calories, I assumed he missed some essential nutrients in his previously consumed whole foods. His stress also increased his appetite and forced him to consume more comfort foods, leading to binge eating.

Excessive calories from junk foods and refined carbs can raise blood sugar, make the body insulin-resistant and leptin resistant, cause elevated stress hormones (cortisol and adrenalin), lower sex and growth hormones, and lead to more visceral fat accumulation in the abdominal area and arteries, and lead to chronic inflammation.

As I documented in a previous article, a combination of hyperlipidemia (excessive fats in the bloodstream) and chronic inflammation are major causes of cardiovascular disorders as they contribute to plaque formation, known as atherosclerosis, leading to a heart attack or stroke.

4 — Obesity and Metabolic Disorders

As his friends mentioned, Dave became obese and showed symptoms of metabolic syndrome like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, and excess belly fat.

Metabolic syndrome also indicates insulin resistance, another metabolic disorder contributing to the formation of cardiovascular disorders. Later, his friends informed him that he was also diagnosed as prediabetic.

A decade before his heart attack, Dave was not overweight. He was fit and consumed his excess calories with exercise. A sedentary lifestyle, poor nutrition, and sleep deprivation causing chronic stress and inflammation can lead to metabolic syndrome.

Studies indicate that people with metabolic syndrome are twice as likely to develop heart disease, and obesity increases the risk of heart attacks by over 20%. As informed in this paper, “Obesity is among the leading causes of elevated cardiovascular disease mortality and morbidity.”

5 — Smoking and Excessive Alcohol Use

After his third year at work, Dave used to smoke a pack of cigarettes. However, he doubled after moving to a new country as the addiction forced him to smoke more. In a previous article, I explained this mechanism by introducing a concept called deltafosb.

Smoking increases the risk of heart disease by damaging the lining of the arteries, increasing blood pressure, and reducing the amount of oxygen in the blood.

According to his friends, Dave also doubled his alcohol intake in the new country to cope with his demanding work stress and suppress the emotions caused by his divorce. He drank two bottles of beer daily at lunch with his colleagues and a bottle of wine at dinner.

Excessive alcohol consumption can also increase the risk of heart attacks by raising blood pressure, cardiomyopathy (damaging the heart muscle), arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms), obesity, metabolic syndrome, and increased levels of triglycerides.

Conclusions

These lifestyle factors and poor habits can contribute to the development of heart disease through different mechanisms, such as oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, damage to the arterial walls, and changes in blood pressure and lipid levels.

It is clearly documented in the literature that the primary risk factors for atherosclerosis and plaque rupture are high blood pressure, excessive blood lipid levels, smoking, diabetes, obesity, and a sedentary lifestyle.

Unfortunately, our hedonistic behaviors prioritizing pleasure and immediate gratification over long-term health and well-being is the major culprit for the manifestation of many diseases.

Furthermore, these hedonistic tendencies turn into habits, forming strong addictions that are difficult to break. Poor lifestyle habits then lead to disorders and shorten our health and lifespan.

These behaviors can include excessive alcohol consumption, drug abuse, sedentary living, and overeating of unhealthy foods. These behaviors can negatively impact cardiovascular health and increase the risk of heart attacks.

To lower the risks of heart attacks, we need to be aware of conditions such as atherosclerotic plaque rupture, coronary artery spasm and embolism, microvascular dysfunction, and coronary artery dissection. I will cover these in another article as they are comprehensive.

As poor lifestyle factors can contribute to the manifestation of these conditions, if you have the situation I mentioned in this story, it is critical to get checked for these conditions by a cardiologist to prevent heart attacks and other cardiovascular disorders.

Here’s an article covering 7 Steps to Improve Heart Health. Here’s Why and How Type II Diabetes Is Reversible. And here’s an article explaining how to Be Your Own Therapist in 10 Steps.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.

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