Swaroop Mittapalli's fervour for fitness, left him with a ruptured heart.

CHENNAI: At 29, Swaroop Mittapalli loved going long bike rides, time in the kitchen, and his job as an assistant director in films. But, yet another passion, the sudden fervour for fitness, left him with a ruptured heart .

In February last year, after four hours of rigorous exercise for over a week and a crash detox diet , the inner layers of his coronary artery tore off the outer layer in spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) — a condition where blood flows into the space between the layers and clots, cutting off the flow through the artery, causing irreparable damage to his heart warring a transplant.

On Monday, a week after the transplant, Mittapalli said he ended up working out for 3-4 hours a day to remain fit. “I hardly get time to exercise. I was between movies. Last February I thought was a good time to start. I went on a crash diet of just fruit and vegetable juices. I would run for four hours,” said Mittapalli, who was part of movies such as Surya-starrer 24.

In February 2017, he suffered a cardiac arrest. He initially got a coronary stent but his heart muscles were too weak. “His heart was damaged so much that it just couldn't pump the way it should. The stent restored the blood flow, but his heart never recovered,” said cardiologist Dr Sai Satish. “It’s important to remember that a heart attack victim is not always a paunchy middle-aged man whose idea of exercise is lifting a drink from the nearest bar. Any rigorous unaccustomed exercise or even stress during labour can cause rupture,” he said.

On April 2, Dr Sai Satish meet Mittapalli in the Apollo Hospitals emergency room with a low pulse and blood pressure and his heart functioning at 18%. “He was just too young to give up on, I did not want to let go,” Dr Satish said. After an eventfully long stay in the hospital, a team led by Dr Paul Ramesh did the transplant on Mittapalli on May 2.

Unlike typical attacks caused by blocks in the arteries, one triggered by a SCAD starts with a tear in an artery wall. “It can be a SCAD or a small otherwise insignificant plaque that ruptured due to excessive unaccustomed stress. It causes a small percentage of heart attacks overall and we don’t have data on this in India yet, but with vigorous marathon training by youngsters we must keep a watch on the incidence,” he said.

Studies abroad show SCAD is responsible for 40% of heart attacks in women under 50. “While it is important to exercise, it necessary to understand each person has a threshold. Training should be under guidance of experts. A person should prepare for rigorous training with healthy diet. When the threshold level goes beyond limits, it can cause severe disharmony,” said physiotherapist and personal trainer Deepak Mudaliar .

Today, Mittapalli shows off his surgical scars to tell people that exercising the right way is more important.

