Only half of Canadians know risk factors for heart disease: report

Katrina Sison was on her way to a volleyball game. But something felt off.

“I just had shortness of breath, like really bad shortness of breath. I decided to go to the emergency [room] instead,” Sison said.

At 38, Sison, from Pickering, Ont., never suspected her heart might be in crisis. “I got the ECHO (echocardiogram) exam, and the cardiologist told me that I would have to do surgery that day or the next day.”

St. Michael’s Hospital cardiac surgeon Dr. Subodh Verma said Sison had an ascending aortic aneurysm that was close to eight centimetres and rapidly expanding.

“This is a catastrophic problem, and it was growing fast,” Verma said. “They say time is muscle, but time was life for her — she was literally going to pass away if we had not operated on her.”

Verma holds the Canada research chair in cardiovascular surgery and is used to managing close calls and difficult surgeries on the operating table.

Tom Scherbluk, 58, from Alliston, Ont., another one of Verma’s patients, also had no clue anything was amiss with his health. Last summer, he got a wakeup call.

“I was at home, I was downstairs, just checking on some files, making sure that I was organized for the next day,” Scherbluk recalled. “Suddenly I was just out of the chair, on the floor in absolute agony.”

“We rapidly brought him to St. Michael’s Hospital, where … I operated on him again almost all night to get him through,” Verma said. “We weren’t able to close his chest for the first few days because of the bleeding.”

Verma said undiagnosed high blood pressure was a contributing factor in Scherbluk’s episode, which ended up being diagnosed as an aortic dissection, a life-threatening tear in the aorta’s inner layers that causes blood to rush through, resulting in further splitting.

“That tear really progresses every hour and gets worse and can lead to sort of death within the first 24 to 48 hours. It can lead to disabling strokes, it can lead to a heart attack, it could lead to kidney damage. It is one of the most important emergencies that we attend to,” Verma said.

A new report from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada says more than 8.2 million adults have been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

According to the most current Canadian guidelines published in 2025, the definition of high blood pressure for adults is at or above 130/80 mm Hg.”Recent evidence shows a substantially increased cardiovascular risk starting at this revised threshold … and is stricter than previously recommended,” the report states.

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“Hypertension doesn’t usually have a lot of signs,” Verma explained. “That’s why people are sort of walking around not knowing that they could be at risk of an aortic dissection.”

Mahee Dharen Dharmalingam, 55, learned about his risk after his family doctor ordered an echocardiogram during a routine visit, which revealed an aneurysm.

“My family doctor said, given your age, you’re just on the borderline. I’m going to refer you to a cardiologist,” Dharmalingam said.

After being followed for some time, the aneurysm grew, and the situation became more critical. “They did several tests, and said, ‘Hey, we have to do this surgery as soon as possible,” Dharmalingam said.

Doctors caution that heart disease does not always present itself the way people see it dramatized in movies or on TV.

“In reality, heart disease can take many shades and colours. Sometimes it can present acutely, sometimes it presents sort of insidiously, sometimes it can take different kinds of manifestations,” Verma said. “They don’t have risk factors; they don’t have traditional reasons to suspect that they may actually have such a significant problem. Oftentimes, regrettably, the first presentation is death.”

This Valentine’s Day, as matters of the heart are top of mind, Verma’s message is simple: Know your risk. Get checked out. Be vigilant.

“If you suspect that you have heart disease or you have risk factors or you have a family history, you know, attend with your family physician, attend with your specialist, you know, get yourself evaluated,” Verma said. “The heart is much more than a symbol of love; it is a symbol of life, it is life. And in that heart, as heart surgeons, we remain in awe of the absolutely remarkable organ that this is.“

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