Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.

Pa ElGrande

Yet another instance of an active person in their prime dropping dead while engaged in excercise. I have a theory that there is a specific combination of food or drink that is leading to this, and that strenuous excercise is the catalyst that stops the heart. My suspicion is mixed fruit juice drinks combined with certain high cafeine product are creating this circumstance.

Does anyone know of anybody in Ireland or elsewhere researching this phenomenon?. I would like to contact them.

wheresthebeef

Hi,
There is a SADS foundation in America, who are very good with resources. Type SADS Foundation into Google and you'll find them.

I was going to do a BT Young Scientist Project on this topic last year, but 6th year proved to be too busy, and now i am in college doing nursing so anyway.

During my research last year, the current medical school of thought seems to be something to do with Ion Levels in the Heart causing a condition called an Ion Channelopathy which affects the polarisation of the Heart (i.e Screws with its ability to polarise electrically and depolarise). Pottassium Ions were one Ion that was cited as possibly problematic.
The reason why people are succeptable to this Ion Channelopathy, currently seems to have a genetic basis, and some scientists have claimed to have located a Gene present in a large majority of the family members of persons who died from SADS.

I have forgotten a lot of my research and the sources i used, but if i find them i will let you know.

Thats the information i learned at the time. Maybe someone like Dr. Indy will have better knowledge, i could be completely wrong.

N8

also this on sudden infant death syndrome http://www.stopsids.org/

Belfast

Pa ElGrande wrote:

Yet another instance of an active person in their prime dropping dead while engaged in excercise. I have a theory that there is a specific combination of food or drink that is leading to this, and that strenuous excercise is the catalyst that stops the heart. My suspicion is mixed fruit juice drinks combined with certain high cafeine product are creating this circumstance.

Does anyone know of anybody in Ireland or elsewhere researching this phenomenon?. I would like to contact them.

I have heard this too. I relates to multi fruit drinks (some have 10 different fruits) and high caffine drinks.
I do know someone who has done a lot of work on it but he is out of the country for the next few months

DrIndy

The nutritional theories are hard for me to reconcile with what I know in medicine and would not believe them.

There was an interesting article in the Irish medical journal concerning this, detailing reports on young adult suddnely dying of heart disease.

The majority were in fact from atherosclerosis which can develop in young people if they have genetic predisposition to producing too much cholesterol. Heart disease from birth defects also featured prominently. HOCM (hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy) which featured prominently in the news with athletes was suprisingly low.

Channelopathies would also account for this but it is also rare.

The best means of prevention of this is to have portable defibrillators everywhere - in american airports, they sit on the wall every 100m along the corridor and do work.

Wibbs

I could see where caffeine might have some effect on an underlying heart condition, but I'm not so sure about the fruit drink hypothoses. Caffeine increases heart rate so it could be a contributing factor. Caffeine plus underlying heart problem plus strenuous exercise could be just the straw that breaks the camels back I suppose.

DrIndy

Wibbs wrote:

I could see where caffeine might have some effect on an underlying heart condition, but I'm not so sure about the fruit drink hypothoses. Caffeine increases heart rate so it could be a contributing factor. Caffeine plus underlying heart problem plus strenuous exercise could be just the straw that breaks the camels back I suppose.

Potentially - this is in HOCM where people are unaware they are even unwell until they are very unwell.

The caffeine hypothesis has been mostly debunked although strenuous exercise will trigger events in any diseased heart.

wheresthebeef

Public Access Defibrillation is a long way off.
I did see one at dublin airport the last time i took a flight. And they have them in RCSI, and St. James Hopsital and a few other places. Insurance is a huge issue with AED's (Automated External Defibrillators).

Community First Responder Schemes are needed to ensure that an AED reaches the patients side within minutes, as opposed to ambulance waiting times of between 15 minutes and 30 minutes in some remote areas. An AED is extremely easy to operate, most of them giving voice prompts and visual indicators at every step. But Schemes like this cost money, and thats something the Dept of Health claim not to have.