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Several possible studies

Story checked

Can you have a heart attack and not know it? (opens in a new tab)

medicalxpress.com · 2026-09-23

Short answerEvidenceSource

Short answer

Several possible studies

No clear answer.

More than one paper fits the article's details, and none fits well enough to single out. Checking claims against the wrong study would be worse than not checking them at all.

Checked against the study summary. The full text wasn't available, so some details couldn't be settled either way.

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NewsLink checks it

Several studies could be the source of this story.

More than one paper fits the article's details, and none fits well enough to single out. Checking claims against the wrong study would be worse than not checking them at all.

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Several studies could fit.

More than one paper fits the article's details, and none fits well enough to single out. Checking claims against the wrong study would be worse than not checking them at all.

Source paper

Source layer

The 2 papers the story cites

Source study separated from background citations.

The research anchor for the report.

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The papers it could be

Nearby papers when the source is unclear.

and 15 more considered

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Evidence layer

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What the story asserts. With no source study, there is nothing to check these against.

Claim 1 of 9Not checkedNot all heart attacks are obvious; some occur with mild, unusual, or no symptoms, leaving people unaware that damage has occurred.View evidenceHide evidence

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Claim 2 of 9Not checkedThese events are called silent myocardial infarctions, or silent heart attacks, and the American Heart Association estimates that about 170,000 of the 805,000 U.S. heart attacks each year are silent.View evidenceHide evidence

As statedapproximately 170,000 of 805,000 U.S. heart attacks per year

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Claim 3 of 9Not checkedA silent heart attack can still cause permanent heart damage and increase the risk of serious health complications later in life.View evidenceHide evidence

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Claim 4 of 9Not checkedSilent heart attacks may be discovered later by tests such as ECG, echocardiogram, or cardiac MRI, sometimes months or years after the event.View evidenceHide evidence

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Claim 5 of 9Not checkedThe story says studies have shown the long-term prognosis of a silent heart attack can approach that of a clinically recognized heart attack.View evidenceHide evidence

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Claim 6 of 9Not checkedA 2018 study in JAMA Cardiology of older adults in Iceland found that after 10 years, mortality among people with an unrecognized heart attack was nearly identical to that among those with a recognized heart attack.View evidenceHide evidence

As statednearly identical mortality after 10 years

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Claim 7 of 9Not checkedA 2018 study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that individuals with silent heart attacks faced a 35% higher risk of heart failure than people with no evidence of a previous heart attack.View evidenceHide evidence

As stated35% higher risk of heart failure

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Claim 8 of 9Not checkedRidha's research involving stroke survivors found that participants with evidence of a silent heart attack had significantly higher rates of recurrent stroke than those with no history of heart attack and even those with a diagnosed heart attack.View evidenceHide evidence

As statedsignificantly higher rates of recurrent stroke

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Claim 9 of 9Not checkedA study in the journal Stroke reported that people who had a silent heart attack had faster long-term decline in global cognitive function than people who never had a heart attack.View evidenceHide evidence

As statedfaster long-term decline in global cognitive function

Not checked

NewsLink could not identify one source study, so this claim was not compared against a paper.

Finally, the search trail

Method layer

No single source study was found.

NewsLink still surfaces nearby research so you can inspect the field instead of a single paper.

Nearby research

No exact source, but these papers are close.

Crossref, PubMed, Europe PMC · 17 candidate papers

Candidate

Faculty Opinions recommendation of Prevalence and prognosis of unrecognized myocardial infarction determined by cardiac magnetic resonance in older adults.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature · 2012 · Crossref

Source (opens in a new tab)

And 12 more candidates considered.