Aa
sudden death in young footballer age 22
What are your thoughts guys?
I've just heard that a young, footballer (well known in england) has died age 22 in his sleep, believed to be a heart atttack.
Apparently he'd collapsed twice before whilst playing football, over the last couple of years. He underwent extensive heart tests according to the reports and it was decided he had a 'virus.' He's been allowed to continue football and now this.
I'm firstly wondering whether it was a heart attack, or some kind of arrythmia disorder...and will have to wait to see what they say.
After extensive heart tests i wonder why the medical people were not able to pick up a heart problem?
Is there a tendency to underplay the problem of sudden death due to heart problems? As a culture are we pushing it under the carpet? Are even the doctors mis-informed about how likely it could be? I can imagine they thought he was a healthy 22 year old, nothing to worry about, lets not be neurotic. I'd have been watching him like a hawk after two collapses....even after one..
hate this type of news....
someone got badly winded at my martial arts class the other day and I freaked inside because they rolled over and looked like they were dead. The teacher picked them up and banged on their back and they started breathing again...... It's making me wonder about the safety of exercise again....even though in that case it was someone winded so not really relevant.
interested in your thoughts :-)
I've just heard that a young, footballer (well known in england) has died age 22 in his sleep, believed to be a heart atttack.
Apparently he'd collapsed twice before whilst playing football, over the last couple of years. He underwent extensive heart tests according to the reports and it was decided he had a 'virus.' He's been allowed to continue football and now this.
I'm firstly wondering whether it was a heart attack, or some kind of arrythmia disorder...and will have to wait to see what they say.
After extensive heart tests i wonder why the medical people were not able to pick up a heart problem?
Is there a tendency to underplay the problem of sudden death due to heart problems? As a culture are we pushing it under the carpet? Are even the doctors mis-informed about how likely it could be? I can imagine they thought he was a healthy 22 year old, nothing to worry about, lets not be neurotic. I'd have been watching him like a hawk after two collapses....even after one..
hate this type of news....
someone got badly winded at my martial arts class the other day and I freaked inside because they rolled over and looked like they were dead. The teacher picked them up and banged on their back and they started breathing again...... It's making me wonder about the safety of exercise again....even though in that case it was someone winded so not really relevant.
interested in your thoughts :-)
i am ali bawa and i am from Ghana and in want you to help me play my football you the biggest level ok
Diseases like HCM and more rarely Long QT Syndrome, CPVT, and Brugada Syndrome tend to affect young athletic people more with sudden death because they push their hearts to the limit. Of course, steroids don't help either. But the fact that he had had extensive heart tests can possibly rule out HCM and more likely be one of the other more rare heart rhythm disorders I mentioned. These diseases can hide on regular heart tests such as ECGs and Echos but are still there. Unless you are looking for those disorders they are not always that easy to see.
My son had a cardiac arrest when he was 18 and was physically fit so the first thought in the doctors mind was steroids. He tested negative for all drugs and it was almost 2 years before we got our family diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome.
It's always so sad and shocking when someone dies so young. I hope his family finds some answers soon for peace of mind.
My son had a cardiac arrest when he was 18 and was physically fit so the first thought in the doctors mind was steroids. He tested negative for all drugs and it was almost 2 years before we got our family diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome.
It's always so sad and shocking when someone dies so young. I hope his family finds some answers soon for peace of mind.
Okay i've just read about HCM on wiki....that helped as it shows that the incidence of this is really low. It also expained a bit about what's going on.
Doesn't help with the myocardial infarction issue though, as yet.
Doesn't help with the myocardial infarction issue though, as yet.
thanks so much for you replies on this subject.
Ed34 - thanks for helping me consider the stats, i will think more about that but right now just to say thanks.
I can see that the information i gather is partly the result of a 'fear' bias. The thing that bothers me the most is sudden death, out of the blue on a normal day. I can't get my head around it. Seeing it happen to my father has led to this over focus on it....maybe if i really think about the stats that will help.
The reason i am not at peace with it is because my father showed no signs of being ill. So i'm left thinking that he wasn't until a rogue plaque rupture occurred. So then thinking about 'fit' people....and thinking that if they are fit then the only thing that could have caused the attack is plaque rupture....and what would have caused that? increased blood flow and blood pressure from exercise.
Of course some of these athletes have cardiomyopathy. That is dreadful. At the same time there's an explanation. There's the feeling that it's something that could be looked out for and 'caught.' Although i wonder how reliable tests for this are as the swansea striker had tests that returned normal. I haven't seen a postmortem result for him. I respect that these things aren't always made public.
I suppose what it comes down to is that i've heard over the years people saying that it's not healthy to do loads of exercise. Men die on squash courts, at marathons, etc. Beginning to think that exercise can cause random plaque rupture. If this is really unlikely feel free to correct me. :-)
Ed34 - thanks for helping me consider the stats, i will think more about that but right now just to say thanks.
I can see that the information i gather is partly the result of a 'fear' bias. The thing that bothers me the most is sudden death, out of the blue on a normal day. I can't get my head around it. Seeing it happen to my father has led to this over focus on it....maybe if i really think about the stats that will help.
The reason i am not at peace with it is because my father showed no signs of being ill. So i'm left thinking that he wasn't until a rogue plaque rupture occurred. So then thinking about 'fit' people....and thinking that if they are fit then the only thing that could have caused the attack is plaque rupture....and what would have caused that? increased blood flow and blood pressure from exercise.
Of course some of these athletes have cardiomyopathy. That is dreadful. At the same time there's an explanation. There's the feeling that it's something that could be looked out for and 'caught.' Although i wonder how reliable tests for this are as the swansea striker had tests that returned normal. I haven't seen a postmortem result for him. I respect that these things aren't always made public.
I suppose what it comes down to is that i've heard over the years people saying that it's not healthy to do loads of exercise. Men die on squash courts, at marathons, etc. Beginning to think that exercise can cause random plaque rupture. If this is really unlikely feel free to correct me. :-)
I have to agree with Rosemary and grendslori.....there seem to be a lot more young people having heart issues than ever before, ie. PVC's, A-fib, PSVT,all kinds of arrythmias. I think with the new generation they have been subjected to more triggers of these episodes because of the junk food they eat....my grandkids live on Ramen noodles. God only knows what their blood sugar levels are. So many of them matter of factly take numerous over the counter cold and allergy meds.Heck, they have access to ordering almost any drug over the internet. They don't seem to understand the danger of it. And we all know how much less physical exercise the kids are getting these days. All of these things added together create a " perfect storm" for heart problems to take hold. Unfortunately so many Dr.'s don't seem to have made the transition into the 21st Century. They have the technology, just not the broadmindedness, or rather they don't look "outside of the box" when it comes to young people. They simply stereotype them and assume they couldn't possibly have anything seriously wrong with their ♥
More than likely these young people have something called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy which is famous for causing sudden death events in athletes. Certainly 7 year olds don't die from a heart attack! They die suddenly due to arrhythmias which are aggrevated by thickened, oxygen deprived, heart walls. A heart attack is caused by a lack of blood flow to the muscle which is usually due to blocked arteries. People tend to think a heart attack is the only reason a person drops dead; not true, arrhythmias are the reason people drop dead at an early age.
what about silent ischemia?. I have no chest pain, no breathlessness. For a year cardios looked and listened and said I'm fine, you can go home. Then a stress test showed positive for ischemia, affecting three parts of the heart wall (hypokinesis) and artery blockage probably trivasicular. I could have gone on unaware with the heartt deteriorating and suddenly been in trouble. I get an angio tomorrow
I think it's also good to remember how the media works. The media are not going to report the death of every Mr Average, they report well known names. So, we continually get fed a picture that looks like fit people are the most likely to die. For every celebrity, there are millions world wide that die of heart problems but are not reported in the media.
The number of heart related deaths in the UK has dropped by around 50% in the last few years thanks to better front line diagnosis/treatments, but is still the biggest killer. I think this figure will eventually reach the 90's in the next few years.
The number of heart related deaths in the UK has dropped by around 50% in the last few years thanks to better front line diagnosis/treatments, but is still the biggest killer. I think this figure will eventually reach the 90's in the next few years.
well, the internet will only provide the information that you ask it to. To put it into perspective...
The UK Stats are....
One in four men 35-75 die from CHD and one in six women.
Half a million people have a heart attack each year.
Angina affects one in 50 people, meaning around 1.2 million have angina.
So, I'm sure you would agree that 1 in 4 of all Men in the UK are not athletes, far from it.
You speak of fit people getting heart problems and dying, but research has found a major cause of this. It's when young people train to be athletes and unknowingly have a heart defect. It's not easy to detect in developing children and they seem so fit, but the condition can also be mild for many years. As the heart enlarges due to extreme exercise, the condition worsens. Post mortems have revealed a huge number of such problems in athletes, where they were born with problems. These athletes were fit, but they had a time bomb waiting to go off in their chest. Now they are looking at running tests on young athletes, before the heart is over developed to see if problems are likely to occur.
The UK Stats are....
One in four men 35-75 die from CHD and one in six women.
Half a million people have a heart attack each year.
Angina affects one in 50 people, meaning around 1.2 million have angina.
So, I'm sure you would agree that 1 in 4 of all Men in the UK are not athletes, far from it.
You speak of fit people getting heart problems and dying, but research has found a major cause of this. It's when young people train to be athletes and unknowingly have a heart defect. It's not easy to detect in developing children and they seem so fit, but the condition can also be mild for many years. As the heart enlarges due to extreme exercise, the condition worsens. Post mortems have revealed a huge number of such problems in athletes, where they were born with problems. These athletes were fit, but they had a time bomb waiting to go off in their chest. Now they are looking at running tests on young athletes, before the heart is over developed to see if problems are likely to occur.
you've only got to google football and heart attack to see a list of men from the age of 20 up to 50 suddenly dying of heart attacks.
In England i think the average lifespan is 75 for men.....so it's a huge difference in lifespan for these guys.
I just want to get this in perspective (if we honestly can). Is it still a rarity or not? Or is it that these people are now dead and unless someone fights for them to find the causes it's not perceived as such a huge problem that it really is?
I do martial arts. I went onto one of their forums and heard of martial art teachers suddenly dropping dead of heart attacks in their 40's and 50's......people that practiced regularly and for years. People with decades of knowledge, all lost.
This is not peole that have gradually got unfit over time. This is highly fit people suddenly dropping dead.
I know i'm lumping together heart attacks and arythmia disorders here and i shouldn't. I guess it's the suddenness that bothers me most. This is not people with known heart disease, thankfully it seems in those cases sudden death is much less likely.
Just so puzzled. Yep maybe i've developed an obsession about the whole thing.....if there is a healthy perspective on this i'll be glad to hear it.
In England i think the average lifespan is 75 for men.....so it's a huge difference in lifespan for these guys.
I just want to get this in perspective (if we honestly can). Is it still a rarity or not? Or is it that these people are now dead and unless someone fights for them to find the causes it's not perceived as such a huge problem that it really is?
I do martial arts. I went onto one of their forums and heard of martial art teachers suddenly dropping dead of heart attacks in their 40's and 50's......people that practiced regularly and for years. People with decades of knowledge, all lost.
This is not peole that have gradually got unfit over time. This is highly fit people suddenly dropping dead.
I know i'm lumping together heart attacks and arythmia disorders here and i shouldn't. I guess it's the suddenness that bothers me most. This is not people with known heart disease, thankfully it seems in those cases sudden death is much less likely.
Just so puzzled. Yep maybe i've developed an obsession about the whole thing.....if there is a healthy perspective on this i'll be glad to hear it.
My gut is telling me this won't be steroids. Just like it isn't in the other cases i've heard of....one of them being a 7 year old who ran outside to play football after just eating his dinner and dropped dead of a heart attack.
I know it would be easier to take if it were that they were all taking steroids....but i think it's more a case of a random tradgedy.
I know it would be easier to take if it were that they were all taking steroids....but i think it's more a case of a random tradgedy.
As far as I know, in the USA all college athletes and all pro athletes are subject to tests for steroids, etc. It's a complicated issue.
For example, Brian Cushing, a professional football player was recently disciplined for testing for an illegal substance. Either Brian Cushing is expecting a baby or his feminine side is showing, but he tested very high for Estrogen. Estrogen masks excessive Testesterone. Several years ago, a professional football player was found to have in his possession device called a "Whizzinator". When athletes are tested for urine, it's an observed test, and the Whizzinator included a fake male member plus a reservoir for someone else's urine to be pumped for the test. Egads. My point is that athletes will use extraaordinary means to use steroids, etc. It's a huge problem as we know from major league baseball which winked at the problem because baseball players jacked up on steroids were hitting home runs and filling stadiums with fans wanting to see the spectacle. All the while, hearts, brains, and organs are stressed by the use of these products. I used to work out at a 'musclehead' gym and you just knew the men and women who were using enhancement drugs. When a woman talks with a voice deeper than a grizzley bear can growl and has huge muscles, it's easy to understand what she is doing. I quit that gym because of the rage issues with some of the muscleheads who were obvious users. Sadly, this filters down to high school athletes as well, and we are just starting to see the problems these drugs have on hearts and all organs.
For example, Brian Cushing, a professional football player was recently disciplined for testing for an illegal substance. Either Brian Cushing is expecting a baby or his feminine side is showing, but he tested very high for Estrogen. Estrogen masks excessive Testesterone. Several years ago, a professional football player was found to have in his possession device called a "Whizzinator". When athletes are tested for urine, it's an observed test, and the Whizzinator included a fake male member plus a reservoir for someone else's urine to be pumped for the test. Egads. My point is that athletes will use extraaordinary means to use steroids, etc. It's a huge problem as we know from major league baseball which winked at the problem because baseball players jacked up on steroids were hitting home runs and filling stadiums with fans wanting to see the spectacle. All the while, hearts, brains, and organs are stressed by the use of these products. I used to work out at a 'musclehead' gym and you just knew the men and women who were using enhancement drugs. When a woman talks with a voice deeper than a grizzley bear can growl and has huge muscles, it's easy to understand what she is doing. I quit that gym because of the rage issues with some of the muscleheads who were obvious users. Sadly, this filters down to high school athletes as well, and we are just starting to see the problems these drugs have on hearts and all organs.
I totally agree. In major athletic tournaments such as world athletics, dont the participants have to provide samples of blood or urine before competing? Maybe they should move this into the arena of football etc.
No, nephew is doing very well. I meant to indicate steriod use is prevalent among some athletes. Sorry for your confusion. I'm surprised there aren't more sudden deaths in athletic world.
kenkeith, sorry to hear about your nephew (if i have read this right).
ed34 - i guess you are right...
right now i'm eating, i've been on a long journey today and gone a long time without food. Now i'm eating my heart is having ectopics.
Before i worried about this sort of thing i used to think my heart was just happy that there was finally food! LOL! Now of course i wonder about it...
ed34 - i guess you are right...
right now i'm eating, i've been on a long journey today and gone a long time without food. Now i'm eating my heart is having ectopics.
Before i worried about this sort of thing i used to think my heart was just happy that there was finally food! LOL! Now of course i wonder about it...
I think many athletes that die suddenly could be related to steriods. My nephew played pro baseball with the Angels. I hadn't seen him for many years, and he was bigger than expected at least what I would expect. Take care, Brock Lesnar :).
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