Former Detroit Lions star running back Barry Sanders recently opened up about the heart attack he suffered last summer as he looks to educate others who may have heart issues.
Sanders is the star of a new documentary on A&E -- ‘The Making of a heart attack’ -- which debuted this past weekend.
In the documentary, Sanders “brings together four others who faced a heart attack or stroke to uncover the hidden risks, lasting impact and what they want others to know,” according to A&E’s website.
Barry Sanders first revealed that he had a “health scare related to my heart” last June.
Sanders recently spoke with CBS Sports about the heart attack, which occurred when he was on a recruiting visit with his son.
“I couldn’t believe it, honestly,” Sanders said. “I thought it was like heartburn, but it just kind of persisted.”
He woke up the morning of the heart attack with what felt like a burning sensation in his chest, he told CBS. He then went to the emergency room and learned that his enzyme levels were really high and getting higher. Finally, a heart catheter procedure showed that Sanders had suffered a heart attack.
“Of all things, I don’t know why, that just never entered my mind,” Sanders told CBS. “I’m learning through this process that there aren’t necessarily any warning signs, unless you do what we’re encouraging people to do, which is to go the doctor, get tested for LDLC levels, or bad cholesterol.
“That’s the only way to find out if you have high cholesterol. It’s not something you’re going to be able to feel. You don’t have to fit a certain physical profile.”
Barry Sanders learned a lot about your heart and how it works after suffering the heart attack. Now he is hoping to educate others.
“It’s really been an education, for me, learning about how frequent this happens all over the U.S.,” Sanders told CBS. “Conversing with these other individuals who are part of this documentary who have very insightful, gripping stories about the journey that they’ve been on. It’s just really amazing. I think it will get a lot of people’s attention.”
Sanders is encouraging people to visit attackheartdisease.com/test. He feels like he is much healthier now than he was a year ago and credits medication, dietary changes and additional walking.
“It’s definitely made me healthier and happier,” said Sanders, who is 56 years old. “Being the kind of athlete that I was, I would see people walking and I would wonder, like, ‘What kind of workout is that?’ But there’s a thing called a heart healthy workout, where you’re just getting your heart rate up a little bit over a certain period of time, and that’s just really good for your heart.
“There was just a certain ignorance that I had about things like that. But all of it has been a learning process.”
Barry Sanders is in both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and College Football Hall of Fame and is widely regarded as one of the greatest running backs of all time.
He won the NFL MVP Award in 1997 and was named first-team All-Pro six times.
He led the NFL in rushing four times, before retiring after the 1998 season at only 31 years old.