Supermodel Anok Yai, 28, has shared a detailed personal health update revealing that she was diagnosed with a congenital defect that “overworked” her heart and “slowly destroyed” her lungs, prompting surgical treatment after symptoms progressively worsened over the past year.
In an Instagram post shared on December 19, 2025, Yai described experiencing a range of symptoms, from a persistent cough to chest pain, episodes of coughing up blood, and difficulty breathing before doctors identified an underlying congenital issue.
According to Yai’s statement:
She was asymptomatic for most of her life, with no evident health concerns during earlier years.
Roughly a year ago, she first noticed a lingering cough that failed to resolve.
Over time, the cough progressed to chest pains, episodes of coughing up blood (hemoptysis), and occasional difficulty breathing, symptoms that reflect increasingly serious pulmonary stress.
These symptoms prompted her to seek medical evaluation, leading to the discovery of a congenital defect believed to affect the heart’s workload and pulmonary function.
“I incidentally found out I had a congenital defect overworking my heart and slowly destroying my lungs,” Yai wrote, summarizing her health journey.
Although Yai did not specify the exact medical diagnosis, she shared that doctors determined a structural or developmental issue present from birth, i.e. a congenital defect was responsible for the escalating symptoms.
In response to the progression of her condition, Yai underwent robotic lung surgery, a minimally invasive surgical technique that uses robotic instruments to access and treat lung tissues. This approach is often employed in thoracic procedures to remove diseased lung areas while reducing the size of incisions and improving precision.
In her post, Yai expressed gratitude toward her surgical team, including Dr. Robert Cerfolio and others at NYU Langone Health, and the clinicians who first identified her condition.
A congenital defect refers to an abnormality in the structure or function of the body that is present from birth. These can range from minor and asymptomatic to serious conditions affecting major organs such as the heart and lungs.
Some congenital heart or lung abnormalities may remain silent for years, with individuals showing no signs until later in life and can become evident only when stress on the cardiovascular or pulmonary system increases.
Clinical resources note that congenital conditions involving the heart or lungs have the potential to:
Alter blood flow or oxygen exchange
Increase strain on cardiac muscle
Lead to pulmonary hypertension or reduced lung function
These effects may, over time, contribute to symptoms such as breathlessness, fatigue, chest pain, or hemoptysis.
In her social media update, Yai stated that the surgery was successful and that she is currently in the process of recovery. She acknowledged support from friends, family, nurses, and medical staff, and indicated plans to resume activities once healed.
“For now I’m healing … but I’ll be back,” she wrote, signing off with appreciation for those who supported her.
Robotic lung surgery refers to a type of robot-assisted thoracic surgery in which surgeons use robotic tools to access the lungs through small incisions. These systems can offer high precision and may be used to remove damaged lung tissue or to perform complex procedures with potentially faster recovery times than traditional open surgery
