Residents of Gujarat's Vadodara, on average, have the healthiest hearts out of all Indian cities, according to a large-scale study by health-tech firm Healthians, a diagnostics market leader known for its user-friendly health-test-at-home services.

Vadodara scored 7.5 on a scale of 10 for heart health, beating second-placed Ludhiana by a wide margin. Ludhiana scored 6.9, and it was followed by Jalandhar at 6.8. Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Panipat, Patiala, Kanpur and Chandigarh completed the top 10.

Amongst the metropolitan cities, Delhi scored 5.4, giving it a rank of 11. Kolkata followed at the 21st position with a score of 5.2. Chennai was 67th with a score of 4.6, while Mumbai ranked 76th with a score of 4.5. Hyderabad and Bengaluru were the lowest, with scores of 4.5 and 4.1.

"Currently, heart disease is the number one cause of mortality among Indians, and the fact that very few Indians get routinely screened for heart health has led to a silent epidemic and the healthcare sector as a whole needs to do something about it,” said Deepak Sahni, Founder & CEO of Healthians.

The scores were arrived at by analysing the prevalence of healthy levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides amongst the population.

The results were part of the 'Dil ki Baat Study by Healthians on India's Heart Health', which used anonymised data from blood tests by 2.66 million people aged 20 and above across 250 cities and towns in India in recent months. This is the largest such data analysis ever done in India related to heart health. As many as 83 cities where a sample size of at least 1,000 was recorded were ranked based on the average scores of the population. 

"More research is needed to understand some cities or regions have fared better while others haven't. However, regular checkups can help prevent a small derangement in health from becoming a full-blown disease," Sahni added.