DgcityHu Ge has given the public a rare window into a leading man’s medical fears. On a health interview program, the actor revealed that a physical exam after seven months of work on a high-altitude production showed problems with his heart, and that the deaths of two friends from heart attacks changed how he packs for work.
He now carries rapid-relief heart pills with him and, when traveling, brings an automated external defibrillator. Two friends died this year, he said, one in his fifties and one his own age, both from heart attacks. “Everyone should be the first person responsible for their own life and health,” he said. The topic of his carrying the pills became one of the most widely discussed health stories on Chinese social media.
Cardiologists moved quickly to keep the public from reading too much into it. An AED treats a specific and narrow emergency: cardiac arrest caused by ventricular fibrillation, a small fraction of all heart episodes. For most patients with ordinary coronary disease, emergency physicians said, buying and maintaining a personal device is unnecessary; learning CPR and knowing the location of public AEDs matters more. High-risk patients in remote areas, they noted, are the exception.
The doctors also drew a careful line between the traditional pills Hu Ge carries and nitroglycerin, the first-line clinical drug for acute angina. The Chinese medicine can temporarily ease mild chest symptoms, they explained, but it is not a universal emergency remedy, must be taken under the tongue rather than swallowed, and should not be repeatedly dosed if the pain persists. Anyone whose chest pain lasts beyond fifteen minutes should call emergency services rather than wait for medicine to work.
The conversation arrived with the calendar. As autumn temperatures drop, cardiovascular episodes rise, and doctors used the moment to repeat the less glamorous advice: manage blood pressure and sleep, avoid overwork and late nights, and take brief chest pain seriously rather than assuming it will pass.
Hu Ge described health as a credit card, drawn down when young and paid back later. His admission turned a private precaution into a public lesson — less about copying his luggage, and more about knowing which fears deserve a doctor, and which tools belong to the whole community rather than one person’s bag.
