Sudden Cardiac Death: Alarming Numbers

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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Sudden cardiac death comes quickly - and apparently out of the blue. One in nine men dies from it and one in around 30 women. "These numbers are an alarm signal," says Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Together with his team, the doctor has determined the lifetime risk of men and women for sudden cardiac death - and what favors it.

The researchers defined sudden cardiac death as deaths that occurred within an hour of the onset of symptoms. In total, they evaluated the data from more than 5,200 men and women between the ages of 28 and 62 who had no cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. They were all participants in the famous Framingham Heart Study. It has been tracking the health careers of the participating men and women since 1948 and that of their children since 1971 and that of their grandchildren since 2002.

Focus on four main risk factors

For the evaluation, the scientists focused on the four main risk factors for sudden cardiac death: high blood pressure, total cholesterol, smoking and diabetes and evaluated how great their influence was on the likelihood of sudden cardiac death. It was found that it was many times higher for men of all ages than for women.

For men who had more than one of these risk factors, the likelihood of sudden cardiac death rose from one to 12.5 percent - the equivalent of one in eight men.

High blood pressure weighs the heaviest

High blood pressure was the most significant for participants who only had one of the four risk factors: men with blood pressure above 160/100 mmHg had the highest risk of sudden cardiac death. This is a value that doctors still refer to as mild hypertension.

The researchers demand that the risk factors for sudden cardiac death in the population be rigorously investigated: “There are regular checks for much rarer diseases, such as colon cancer, which affects one in 21 men. And although the risk of sudden cardiac death is so much higher, the risk factors are not screened here, ”says Lloyd-Jones. In fact, in Germany, for example, one in five people with high blood pressure does not know that they suffer from it. He is not treated accordingly.

Torn from life

Sudden cardiac death kills most of them completely unexpectedly - and in many cases comparatively young: "It usually occurs before the age of 70," says Lloyd-Jones. Such a death naturally comes as a surprise to relatives and often has devastating consequences.

It is estimated that 100,000 to 200,000 people in Germany suffer sudden cardiac death every year. The cause is usually a coronary heart disease, followed by diseases of the heart muscle, the heart valves and disorders of the electrical conduction system of the heart.

Sudden cardiac death announces itself in around half of the cases, for example through:

• Feeling of pressure or tightness in the left chest, especially when exercising
• Dizziness or fainting
• Shortness of breath and water retention
• Heart rate too fast or too slow

Sources:

Brittany M. Bogle et al .: Lifetime Risk for Sudden Cardiac Death in the Community, J Am Heart Assoc .; 2016; 5: e002398, originally published June 29, 2016; doi: 10.1161 / JAHA.115.002398

Men may face high lifetime risk of sudden cardiac death; American Heart Association Rapid Access Journal Report, 6/29/2016

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