Sads

juanveron45

As some of you will know a very good friend of mine died suddenly in his sleep of sudden death syndrome, this is something thats becoming more and more common.Two friends of his actually died of the same condition within a year of another about 2 years ago and with the sudden death of Antonio Puerta and with leicester player clive clarke collapsing this is becoming all too common for it to be coincidence or hereditary .I mean this type of thing didnt happen 30-40 years ago, not to the same extent anyway.I was thinking the other day that sports supplementation is a relatively new thing so I was wondering if there was any possibility if there could be a link between the too, I dont want to be a scare monger here but this thing is specifically happening to young men that are into fitness, I know of one docter that has concerns about sports supplementation and how there are no controls there.

cowzerp

i would say straight out no its no bearing on these deaths-the press giving you the information easily-like the internet is why we hear of this now-its always happened. Doctors generally dont understand nutrition anyway and most supplements are just convenient food anyway..

PeakOutput

cowzerp wrote:

i would say straight out no its no bearing on these deaths-the press giving you the information easily-like the internet is why we hear of this now-its always happened.

agreed

also if anotnio puerta was the footbaler that died earlier this week/last week, his death was not sudden adult death syndrome.

he had previous episodes of extreme low blood pressure and had feinted and things before the doctors missed the reason for this when he went to the hospital because of them and he had his worst episode of low blood pressure during that match which caused a heart attack. as far as i know they have since found he had some type of heart disease/disorder which was causing this and also as far as I know with sudden adult death syndrome they cannot find any medical reason for having the heart attack

edit; although i did hear somewhere that sad is caused by a strengthining of the heart muscle due to being extraordinarily fit but i think this was just pure speculation

edit2; the % of athletes "dropping dead" is really really really low much lower say then unhealthy people dropping dead

Vegeta

Firstly sorry to hear about your friend

well I think there are a multitude of things going on here like with more media coverage, makes it possible to hear about most of these cases. SO wether there are more of these cases or do we just hear about more of them is a good question. How long ago was SAD even discovered

Thing is professional athletes would surely be getting medicals all the time and if the supplements they were taking caused any harm it would show up in the medicals. They would be taking supplements over a long period of time so to "suddenly" drop dead does not point at the supplements. A prolonged exposure to something causing a sudden death just doesn't add up.

Do I think it could be supplements? I hope not.

Also which would you rather do, have an unhealthy life in fear of SAD or become fit and strong. Its a no brainer for me anyway.

Anthony_1980

id say it happens as people are pushing themselves alot more to be fitter these days

ie foodball with bigger squads some players train harder to stay in team and id say slowly damaging the heart

antonio puerto apparently collapsed a few times before but was still allowed to carry on playing

Roper

No Puerta wasn't SADS and I don't think the Clive Clarke incident was SADS either. Just on the note of it being a recent phenomenon, the Indo ran a story on Puerta's funeral in Seville and recalled the death of a previous Seville player in the early 1970s from SADS.

In any case, SADS it seems is a generic term given to unexplainable adult deaths. Who knows if each one is the same? One could be viral, one genetic etc.

Very sorry to hear of your friend juanveron.

Anthony_1980

well id say it has happened plenty before

just sports these days is a huge global market

years ago as big as it was i dont thing sports was as big as it it today with sponsorships , pressures etc

because it wasnt as big as it is these days maybe the deaths where never reported really

i dont know

depadz

they were discussing this on newstalk this morning.
Cormac McEnellan's mother was on, alomng with a Dr.

Apparently it is very difficult to detect on scan. An ECG won't show it up.
He had a resting HR of 35 and was obv very fit and active.

It is genetic - there is a clinic in Tallaght (i think) which will test siblings of victims of SADS.

juanveron45

I dont buy the over exertion theory, professional footballers are fit yes but there are athletes of other disciplines that are way fitter than footballers and put there bodies through alot more punishment.I think for now it can only be put down to a genetic defect from birth and that exercise is not the cause merely the trigger.

Do you think people that die like this feel much pain, or is it just a matter of losing consciousness

PeakOutput

juanveron45 wrote:

Do you think people that die like this feel much pain, or is it just a matter of losing consciousness

thats gonna cut fairly close to the bone dont you think juan?

tbh i reckon its the same as a heart attack but i dont know enough about it.

g'em

juanveron45 wrote:

this is becoming all too common for it to be coincidence or hereditary

If anything an increase in frequency means it's more likely to be herditary, particularly if it's something like an autosomally recessive genetic trait that gets passed from one generation to the next undetected. The average age of those who die from SADS is 32 and therefore highly likely to have had children.

A long QT interval has been associated with SADS, and that is hereditary. QT prolonging drugs are also an associated risk.

juanveron45 wrote:

.I mean this type of thing didnt happen 30-40 years ago, not to the same extent anyway.

we don't know that. Research in the last couple of years has shown that many deaths listed as 'unexplained' may very well have been due to SADS.

juanveron45 wrote:

I was thinking the other day that sports supplementation is a relatively new thing so I was wondering if there was any possibility if there could be a link between the too

With all due respect that's like adding 2 + 2 and getting 78. to the best of my knowledge, and a lengthy pubmed search, supplementation of any kind has not been associated with SADS in any context.

juanveron45 wrote:

I know of one docter that has concerns about sports supplementation and how there are no controls there.

I know of plenty of doctors who have concerns about supplementations. That doesn't mean they're right. I do my own research and the vast majority of the time realise that their 'information' is outdated or fantastical. I've been told that creatine will interrupt my menstrual flow by a GP for goodness sake - does that mean I should stop eating steak??

juanveron45 wrote:

I think for now it can only be put down to a genetic defect from birth and that exercise is not the cause merely the trigger

I think you should be very wary of making those kinds of claims when dealing with something as complex as a condition like SADS. We're only beginning to tentatively understand the causes and conditions involved in this, and even at that, there's not a lab or hospital in the world that will claim to 'put it down to a genetic defect', there's a heck of a lot more to it than that.

g'em

fwedrest wrote:

Apparently it is very difficult to detect on scan. An ECG won't show it up.
He had a resting HR of 35 and was obv very fit and active.

very difficult apparently. That long QT syndrome I just mentioned is one of the syndromes most closely associated with SADS, but even during a very thorough cardiac exam as high-end athletes would go through it's very hard to detect. There's four stages to every heartbeat - Q, R, S and T. The QT interval is when the electrical system recharges itself, and when it takes too long to do so ( i.e. the long QT syndrome) the heart stops pumping blood out, depriving the brain of blood and can lead to a sudden loss of consciousness and even death.

Arrhymia (quickened heart-beating) is said to be one of the only warning signs of SADS, and how many of us would get concerned to any large degree if our heart speeded up slightly during exercise?

Pherekydes

juanveron45 wrote:

...with the sudden death of Antonio Puerta and with leicester player clive clarke collapsing this is becoming all too common for it to be coincidence or hereditary.

Accurate statistics are not available but experts estimate that at least 8 young people die suddenly each week in the UK of cardiac abnormalities - sudden death syndrome or sudden cardiac death.

The quote is from here

8 deaths per week in the UK alone. And how many do we hear of? Just the Sports' related ones. So when people see this stuff in the media, they quickly jump to the conclusion that Sport is the cause and not just the trigger, as you so rightly pointed out.

Sorry about your friend.

nesf

I'm sorry to hear about your friend Juan.

juanveron45 wrote:

I was thinking the other day that sports supplementation is a relatively new thing so I was wondering if there was any possibility if there could be a link between the too

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.