If a young person dies suddenly from a heart attack, does it necessarily mean that he has had a heart attack?

Recently, there have been frequent reports of athletes dying suddenly, and many people can't help but wonder: Isn't heart disease a disease of the elderly? Why do young people also suffer from sudden cardiac death? Are myocardial infarctions happening at younger and younger ages? Is the idea that exercise is good for health also a lie?

The reason why everyone has such questions is because we have two major misunderstandings!

Misconception 1: Is myocardial infarction the main cause of sudden death among young people?

no!

Not only is it not the main cause, it is not even common. Myocardial infarction due to coronary heart disease is the result of vascular aging. The incidence rate starts to increase after the age of 40, ranking first among the causes of death among middle-aged and elderly people. However, young people's blood vessels have not entered the aging process, so myocardial infarction is very rare.

In fact, the most common cause of sudden death among teenagers in my country is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, accounting for up to 30%. It is caused by abnormal myocardial development due to gene mutation, which causes thickening of the ventricular wall and obstruction of heart ejection, causing chest pain, syncope, cardiac arrest and even sudden death.

Cardiac ultrasound examination during adolescence is the most important method to detect hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. However, due to its hidden onset, some patients cannot be detected by cardiac ultrasound, and the disease will only occur during exercise. Therefore, it is also called the "sports sudden death killer", which is an important reason for the sudden death of many seemingly healthy young people and even athletes.

Myth 2: Is exercise definitely good for health?

Whether it is high blood pressure, angina pectoris or myocardial infarction, these heart diseases are not suitable for exercise during the attack period . Increasing the amount of exercise will increase the burden on the heart and cause the condition to worsen, such as drastic fluctuations in blood pressure, frequent angina pectoris, and even heart rupture after myocardial infarction.

Therefore, moderate exercise will be beneficial to health only after heart disease is effectively controlled.

It is worth mentioning that although we often hear that cardiopulmonary resuscitation is an important measure to rescue patients with sudden cardiac death, in fact the success rate of out-of-hospital rescue is only 1%, because simple cardiopulmonary resuscitation is difficult to terminate the main causes of cardiac arrest - malignant arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation.

The automatic defibrillator (AED) is an effective method to terminate ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation. Therefore, popularizing automatic defibrillators and their usage in public places can further improve the success rate of rescuing cardiac arrest patients in the first time .

I am Dr. Zhang from the Department of Cardiology. If you like my popular science articles, please like them! You can also share them with friends in need! Follow me to see more health knowledge about heart disease!