Although heart attacks or often intense and painful, sometimes they can be more subtle, just causing generalised chest pain.

However, they can still cause lasting damage to heart tissue, killing a section of heart tissue or leaving it unable to perform properly, which may lead to further conditions like heart failure.

Using the latest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, researchers looked for evidence of heart attack in 936 volunteers in Iceland aged 67 to 93.    The MRI scans picked up that 17 per cent, 1 in 6, had unknowingly suffered a heart attack at some time.

The researchers, from the US’s National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, have published their findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr Erik Schelbert, lead researcher, reported that the incidence of heart attack in older people was “higher than previously appreciated”.

Source: Journal of the American Medical Association.