can young,healthy,athletic men have heart attacks?

[Lurker011]

this is a sad case. i like to read bodybuilding message boards. about a week ago,there was a 22 year old australian bodybuilder who was found unresponsive and breathless in a sauna. he was rushed to a local hospital but could not be revived. the postmortem report said that he died from a massive heart attack. he was just 22 and had a clean bill of health and was very athletic. this is shocking. have any of you,especially in the cardiac department,had a case of young and healthy men who had MI's? this is something that has really stunned me.

[cindyloowho]

There is something called long Q-T syndrome that can throw the heart into a serious arrhythmia. Only rapid defibrilation can help and sometimes even that is not enough.

I was educated that people are thrown into multi-phasic V tach (torsaddes) with long q-t syndrome, and that this is actually not a shockable rhythm due to the inability for synchronization. Anyone have insight on this?

[ZippyGBR, BSN, RN]

Yep, in one word: cardiomyopathy

yep -

or as cindy mentioned long Q-t could also be a cause

or coronary artery spasm - though that's usually provoked - you tend to see this more in clubbing / raves where the old' bolivian marching powder is around

never mind if he was a 'roider or taking any of the other wierd and wonderful potions bodybuilders tend to take

[Dezy]

so does this mean someone can have a heart attack for absolutely no reason at all?

I mean there has to be some kinda trigger right?

[stellarweb]

i know of a few people who died in their thirties because of heart attack. It happens.

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

My brother in law's youngest brother dropped dead of a massive MI at 18. He was running track, told the coach he felt hot and funny, sat down and literally toppled backwards off the bench, and he was gone. At autopsy, they found out he had a genetic defect, and he had essentially been living on borrowed time -- the doc said something to the effect that it was a combination of him reaching his adult height, the stress of running track, and the heart had simply reached the end of it's ability to compensate. After that, there was a lot of family testing done, and my BIL's remaining brother also had a heart defect he had no clue about; he had surgery, but his long term survival is questionable. He's now 40, but the docs doubt he will have a normal lifespan. My sister whipped out the Visa and they now have an AED in their house, just in case my BIL has a problem that the testing missed.

So, you can have a genetic time bomb in your chest, and never know until it goes off.

[SweetheartRN]

Check out Brugada syndrome.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

google "len bias" if you want a classic example. he was the leading basketball draft choice, signed with the boston celtics, and died at the party to celebrate his signing.

reggie lewis was another one, another top celtics draft choice. he had had some dysrhythmias but was cleared to play... and he died too. http://www.theheart.org/article/199839.do

you could also look up marfan's syndrome and flo hyman for more on lethal occult cardiac lesions.

i'm still thinking the heat of the sauna may have contributed to this one, though. if the post didn't actually show an infarct, think dysrhythmia.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

Happened to my brother. Healthy weight, fit, not big and muscled, just lean and athletic, soccer player, father of three, young 30s, eats VERY healthy and started having weird arrythmias during his games. Passed out, went to ER, diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He had a severely enlarged heart from the proteins in the muscles being lined up incorrectly, never detected before until he became symptomatic.

They sent him to Mayo where he had open heart surgery (some kind of muscle ablation) and he is doing great now. He got lucky though. Most with his condition fall over dead on the field of play.

[MassED, BSN, RN]

Or woman. :)

yes, but stated this in keeping with the original post line of discussion...

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

Five minutes ago on the news, the updated COD on a young man (early 20s I believe) was changed from "just" drowning to multiple congenital heart defects, that the ME feels may have caused a lethal arrhythmia.

My half-brother (not the above young man) was a competitive swimmer. He was out with friends at a river on a very hot day; he didn't know that the dam north of where they were had released a lot of very cold water. He dove in, and died instantly. No history of heart disease. His heart couldn't compensate for the instant vasoconstriction from the cold. He was around 28 (I never got to know him; just recently found out the details from contact with my biological mother).

And, yes- I know the OP referred to a male...:)

[jelly221,RN]

Yeah, unfortunately a lot of the drugs that bodybuilders use do cause cardiomyopathy (clenbuterol, anabolics, etc.). Not saying this guy was definitely on them, but in that community it is extremely commonplace to be on at least a FDA-banned fat burner before shows.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

Reggie Louis, Hank Gathers, and Florence Griffith-Joyner were all star athletes who died of heart attacks.