Younger Athletes At Higher Risk of Sports-Related Sudden Cardiac Arrest: Study

Cardiac arrests are no longer an issue associated with old age or fitness. Instances of people suffering sudden cardiac arrest even at a young age, despite a healthy lifestyle, seem to have become common. The Sports Institute reported that in the United States, every two to three days a young athlete dies as the result of sudden cardiac arrest. They have reported it as the number one cause of premature death in exercising young athletes. While there is ample data available for young adults, the older generation is often overlooked in this sphere. Despite the sports activity among older adults is witnessing a rise, there is a lack of community-based data on sports-related sudden cardiac arrest among them. Research published in the peer-reviewed journal JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology has worked to fill this gap.

The team of researchers investigated how prevalent is sports-related sudden cardiac arrest among subjects over the age of 65 years in the population of the United States. Its characteristics were also the objective of the study.

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For this study, the researchers looked for subjects with all out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests (SCAs). These were from Portland, Oregon, the Metro Area, and Ventura County, California. Detailed information was also obtained for sudden cardiac arrest warning symptoms, along with circumstances, and lifetime clinical history. If SCA occurred in any subject during or within 1 hour of stopping whatever sports activity they were engaged in, they were categorized as cases for Sports-related sudden cardiac arrest (SrSCA).

Out of 4,078 cases of sudden cardiac arrest, with subjects over 65 years of age, only 77 were SrSCA. This was a shocking number when compared to how many SrSCA cases happened in a year among people under the age of 65. SrSCA cases in the younger generation are 3.29 in every 100,000 in Portland and 2.10 in every 100,000 in Ventura.

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Researchers also found that the most commonly associated activities were cycling, gym activity, and running. SrSCA cases had a lower burden of cardiovascular risk factors as well as comorbidities compared with non-SrSCA.

It was concluded that among free-living community residents over the age of 65 years, Sports-related sudden cardiac arrest is uncommon. When it does occur, it happens predominantly in men and is associated with a lower disease burden than non-SrSCA. Furthermore, researchers concluded that these results suggest that the risk of SrSCA is low. It is also probably outweighed by the high benefit of exercise.

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