Neena’s life took an unexpected turn when she suffered a heart attack at 27 years old.

“I started screaming for my mum to come up and she ran up the stairs and into the bedroom and I literally couldn’t move, I was in so much pain.”

Although she had experienced waves of pain in the weeks before the medical emergency, Neena assumed her symptoms were indigestion. As a reasonably fit young woman with no history of heart problems, experiencing a heart attack was not something she even considered to be a possibility.

“Everything was so quick and a blur I had no idea what had actually happened until that point. It was total disbelief and denial because I was so young.”

Thankfully, Neena’s quick-thinking sister called an ambulance and she was blue lighted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. Once she arrived at the hospital, a team of medical experts decided she needed to have a stent fitted there and then.

A stent is a short, wire mesh tube that acts like a scaffold to help keep your heart’s arteries open. This tiny device keeps vital blood flowing and can save lives after a heart attack. These brilliant devices are also fitted as a preventative measure, and surgeons may stent several vessels to limit the risk of future heart attacks.

Pioneering research to combat CVD in South Asian communities

There are around 7.6 million people in the UK living with cardiovascular disease (CVD). British Heart Foundation (BHF) is committed to understanding how people of different ethnicities may be at different levels of risk. We have a long history of funding research that supports this goal and we continue to do so, giving people hope.

In the 1990s, BHF began supporting a study following thousands of South Asian volunteers with the aim to identify genetic and environmental factors contributing to cardiovascular risk. BHF-funded researchers have contributed to this study over the years, including Professors James Scott and Jaspal Kooner, who were among the first to identify variations in DNA that increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in South Asian people.

We continue to fund research into the causes that could explain cardiovascular disease risk in South Asian communities, and new ways to reduce the risk and save lives. BHF Professor John Danesh, at the University of Cambridge, is trying to identify unknown risk factors that increase the risk of CVD among South Asian communities. By collecting genetic information from thousands of people, he hopes to find new opportunities to develop treatments that can reduce their risk, helping to give people more time with the ones they love.