Only 1.9% of 4,000 older people aged 65 or over suffered a sudden cardiac arrest
Sudden cardiac arrest due to exercise among the elderly over the age of 65 is extremely rare, according to a study. This is the content reported by the health medicine web magazine ‘Health Day’ on the 1st (local time) based on a paper by researchers at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in the United States that was recently published in the 《Journal of the American Heart Association Clinical Electrophysiology (JACC). )》.
Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) occurs when a person’s heart stops due to an electrical failure. Most people die within minutes. The proportion of older adults developing SCA has increased in recent years.
The research team, led by Sumit Chu, director of the Heart and Rhythm Center at the Smith Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, USA, studied 4078 patients aged 65 and over with SCA in Portland, Oregon and Ventura County, California , USA records were analyzed. The researchers excluded those who did not attempt CPR and those who developed SCA during hospitalisation.
As a result of the survey, only 77 (1.9%) of 4078 cases were found to have occurred during or immediately after cycling, running, golf or tennis, or fitness. In particular, the proportion of males was very high, at 91%.
The researchers found that people who had SCA during or immediately after exercise had fewer heart risk factors and other health problems than those who had SCA regardless of exercise. Exercise-related SCA was more likely to occur in public places such as gyms. It was one of the reasons why the odds of survival were four times higher than those with non-exercise-related SCA.
The researchers found that the health benefits of exercise outweighed the risk of a sudden heart attack. “This is why the elderly should continue to exercise regularly,” said Chu, head of the center.
The paper can be found at the following link (https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacep.2022.10.033).
