Topic: Is there a link between playing sport and sudden cardiac arrest?

[Movius]

Many heart conditions lie dormant until one particular stressful event, competitive sport is one potential candidate here. It's not even that rare if you count pre-emptive diagnosis or close-calls.

Tony Vidmar had to pull out of the 2006 world cup on the eve of squad selection due to a potential heart condition. After 3 previous failed qualification campaigns.

There have been a few cases in the Australian Football League (Aussie rules) of players with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome or other heart issues, one of whom, Nathan Eagleton, collapsed on the pitch with a heart-rate somewhere around 50-zillion and was back in the side 4 weeks later and went on to play 11 more years. None of these involved cardiac arrest, though the threat was there.

There are multiple documented cases of cricketers dying or going into cardiac arrest after being struck above the heart with a cricket ball.

That said, in the case of soccer players. I'm fairly certain drugs would be a common aggravating feature. Drug testing in soccer is terrible and poorly policed.

[karirafn]

You would be shocked at some of the things I have seen people on bodybuilding sites put in their bodies.

I've heard that some bodybuilders use Triiodothyronine for cutting and that it can cause permanent hypothyroidism (among other things that are probably more serious).

[Tatyana]

You would be shocked at some of the things I have seen people on bodybuilding sites put in their bodies.

I've heard that some bodybuilders use Triiodothyronine for cutting and that it can cause permanent hypothyroidism (among other things that are probably more serious).

Yes, they use T3. As much as this dismays me as I like scare stories to stop people doing stupid things to themselves,  I don't think that it causes permanent hypothyroidism as there are numerous medically documented cases where patients have been put on thyroid medication by accident and their thyroid glands recover.

However, a high T3 can precipitate other problems, like issues with the heart and bone thinning, so it still isn't great.

They also like to combine T3 with clenbuterol, which makes it even more dangerous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clenbuterol

[Tatyana]

You can't get effedra in any form over here.  I'm not sure if the pills I was taking had anything else in them, but they certainly weren't sold as Chinese herbal medications.  I wasn't a skeptic at the time, and I had no idea how bad and unregulated most supplements were at the time.  As much as I loved them then, there is no way you'd get me near any of that stuff now.  As it is, I don't trust much that is marketed for 'sport enhancement' even over the counter.  It's so hard as a layman to dig my way through the marketing bullshit and real studies.  I figure if I lift weights, do some cardio, eat mostly meat and veggies, I'll probably come out just fine.

People still buy it on line.

The diet 'stack' is ephedra or ephedrine (which is preferable to most), caffeine and aspirin.

(click to show/hide)

You would be shocked at some of the things I have seen people on bodybuilding sites put in their bodies.

Ephedra and ephedrine is children's candy in comparison to some of the really dangerous things some people will take, for example, stage one or two clinical trial drugs, for example, myostatin monoclonal antibodies.

The one that scares me the most is when people take, DNP, or dinitrophenyl for weight loss.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,4-Dinitrophenol

Not in the USA.  They've been replacing it with 'bitter orange' and 'green tea' and claiming those are fat burners.  Ephedra and ephedrine have been illegal here for many years.

People in the USA are still using ephedra or ephedrine,  not legally of course, but they can order it from Canada, Europe, or China.

[karirafn]

You would be shocked at some of the things I have seen people on bodybuilding sites put in their bodies.

I've heard that some bodybuilders use Triiodothyronine for cutting and that it can cause permanent hypothyroidism (among other things that are probably more serious).

Yes, they use T3. As much as this dismays me as I like scare stories to stop people doing stupid things to themselves,  I don't think that it causes permanent hypothyroidism as there are numerous medically documented cases where patients have been put on thyroid medication by accident and their thyroid glands recover.

However, a high T3 can precipitate other problems, like issues with the heart and bone thinning, so it still isn't great.

They also like to combine T3 with clenbuterol, which makes it even more dangerous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clenbuterol

I tried Clenbuterol a few years ago... never again. It raises your body temperature by c.a. 0.5°C (or so I was told) and the first few days I felt like I had the flu. I also got cramps. One night I woke up and my left arm was locked up (curled up) because I had a huge cramp.

[khendar]

Jim Fixx, the author of the Complete Book of Running and health guru, died after going for a morning jog.

[Johnny Slick]

I don't know that I'd *quite* call him a "health guru"; I think he was more of an extreme pro-jogging advocate.

On July 20, 1984, Fixx died at age 52 of a fulminant heart attack, after his daily run on Vermont Route 15 in Hardwick. The autopsy revealed that atherosclerosis had blocked one coronary artery 95%, a second 85%, and a third 70%.[3] Although there were opponents of Fixx's beliefs who said this was evidence that running was harmful, medical opinion continued to uphold the link between exercise and longevity.[4] In 1986 exercise physiologist, Kenneth Cooper, published an inventory of the risk factors that might have contributed to Fixx's death.[5] Granted access to his medical records and autopsy, and after interviewing his friends and family, Cooper concluded that Fixx was genetically predisposed (his father died of a heart attack at age 43 and Fixx himself had a congenitally enlarged heart), and had several lifestyle issues. Fixx was a heavy smoker prior to beginning running at age 36, he had a stressful occupation, he had undergone a second divorce, and his weight before he took up running had ballooned to 220 pounds (100 kg).

You can be as physically healthy as you want, but if your cholesterol level is so high that a major coronary artery is experiencing 95% blockage, you still stand a very strong chance of dying young.

[Tatyana]

I don't know that I'd *quite* call him a "health guru"; I think he was more of an extreme pro-jogging advocate.

On July 20, 1984, Fixx died at age 52 of a fulminant heart attack, after his daily run on Vermont Route 15 in Hardwick. The autopsy revealed that atherosclerosis had blocked one coronary artery 95%, a second 85%, and a third 70%.[3] Although there were opponents of Fixx's beliefs who said this was evidence that running was harmful, medical opinion continued to uphold the link between exercise and longevity.[4] In 1986 exercise physiologist, Kenneth Cooper, published an inventory of the risk factors that might have contributed to Fixx's death.[5] Granted access to his medical records and autopsy, and after interviewing his friends and family, Cooper concluded that Fixx was genetically predisposed (his father died of a heart attack at age 43 and Fixx himself had a congenitally enlarged heart), and had several lifestyle issues. Fixx was a heavy smoker prior to beginning running at age 36, he had a stressful occupation, he had undergone a second divorce, and his weight before he took up running had ballooned to 220 pounds (100 kg).

You can be as physically healthy as you want, but if your cholesterol level is so high that a major coronary artery is experiencing 95% blockage, you still stand a very strong chance of dying young.

This is just a medical heuristic, but I would suspect familial hyperlipidaemia, which does predispose people to heart attacks at a much earlier age, for example, at 40.

This is unfortunate as the vast majority of lipid screening does not really start in the UK until people are 40 years of age.

[lonely moa]

A few of my active friends have succumbed to heart attacks that were not lipid related, elecrical and structual.

[khendar]

Norwegian world champion swimmer Alexander Dale Oen has died of a suspected heart attack in Arizona at the age of 26, said the Norwegian Olympic Committee.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-02/olympic-swimmer-found-dead-in-shower/3984092

[khendar]

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/09/09/3314435.htm

Endurance athletes who train and race frequently may experience a high rate of unusual heart rhythms called arrhythmia, found a new study on cross-country skiers

Trying to find the study now.

[lonely moa]

I think it is pretty well known that modern elite (endurance related) athletes have a lower expected lifespan than if they had retired earlier,  or raced and competed only recreationally.  Higher mortality is not only from cardiovascular issues, though.

What did I hear on the news last night?  Four retired, but young, gridiron players committed suicide last year.