As of: February 22, 2024, 11:52 a.m
By: Susanne Sasse
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In many cases it affects people under the age of 65: the risk is underestimated in the population.
© Imago
Through education, an initiative of the German Heart Foundation wants to ensure that relatives of victims of sudden cardiac death recognize warning signs in their own body at an early stage.
Munich/Frankfurt
– 65,000 Germans die from sudden cardiac death every year.
Their relatives are often also at risk - without knowing it.
An initiative by the German Heart Foundation wants to change that to save lives.
Because warning signs are often not recognized in the affected family.
Hearts with hereditary diseases can often be protected with simple measures.
Sudden cardiac death: Relatively young people often fall victim to it
It is also called the death of a second.
“Statistically there are 178 deaths per day and the number of unreported cases is high,” says Professor Thomas Voigtländer, Chairman of the German Heart Foundation.
“Sudden cardiac death is the most common cause of death outside of hospitals,” he emphasizes.
The problem for cardiologists: the dead are often not autopsied.
Inherited heart diseases are often not discovered.
To the detriment of the relatives.
If you have a hereditary heart disease, you have a 50 percent risk of being affected and suffering sudden cardiac death.
Prof. Thomas Voigtländer heads the Heart Foundation.
© fkn
Incidentally, this sudden death does not only affect older people: in around 40 percent of cases, relatively young people between the ages of 15 and 65 die.
“Many people don’t know that young people can also be victims,” regrets molecular biologist Prof. Silke Kauferstein.
She heads the Center for Sudden Cardiac Death at the Institute for Forensic Medicine at the University Hospital Frankfurt am Main.
She explains: In addition to congenital heart defects, changes in the coronary arteries (coronary anomalies), inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis), and above all genetic heart diseases, the causes of cardiac death at a young age are.
Hereditary heart diseases are often little known among the population
“Unfortunately, many hereditary heart diseases are far less known in the population than, for example, the much rarer metabolic defect cystic fibrosis,” says Kauferstein.
Long QT syndrome, in which the transmission of stimuli in the heart is disturbed, occurs twice as often as cystic fibrosis.
One in 2,000 people suffer from long QT syndrome, which can lead to dangerous cardiac arrhythmias due to the slowed transmission of stimuli.
Kauferstein has made it his life's mission to shed light on this issue: “Hereditary heart defects do not necessarily have to lead to death.” Heart diseases often progress for a long time without any clear symptoms.
But that makes it all the more important to inform the population about the alarm signals.
“These are, for example, unclear fainting spells.
Such warning signs are often not recognized.”
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Prof. Silke Kauferstein researches sudden cardiac death.
© fkn
Sudden cardiac death occurs when a person dies within an hour of the first symptoms, explains Professor Thomas Voigtländer.
If the death was unobserved, then a sudden cardiac death is considered if someone was seen alive 24 hours before death and did not suffer from any other non-cardiac illness.
(Susanne Sasse)
The alarm signals
Fainting and brief loss of consciousness (so-called syncope).
These often occur due to specific triggers such as stress, a shrill alarm clock or physical exertion.
Seizures without clear pathological EEG findings.
Sudden unexplained deaths at a young age in the family.
Alarm signals also include sudden deaths in the water or unexplained car accidents.
Even if there is a known epilepsy, this does not have to be the cause - but sudden cardiac death should still be considered.
Heart failure or need for a pacemaker before the age of 50.
Recognizing danger before sudden cardiac death: More information
on the Internet about the initiative “Together against sudden cardiac death”: https://herzstiftung.de/junge-herzen-retten
Athletes are also affected: preventive sports medical examinations reduce the risk
Athletes are also affected, amateurs more often than professionals.
Nevertheless, it happens again and again in front of the cameras that a professional athlete's heart suddenly stops.
For example, on June 21, 2021, when Christian Eriksen collapsed during the EURO 2020 group game between Denmark and Finland.
Immediate chest compressions, coupled with other measures, saved his life.
Christian Eriksen is on the ground.
Photo: afp © afp
Other players weren't so lucky and died.
The professionals are monitored much better than the amateur athletes, says Professor Tim Meyer, chief medical officer at the German Football Association and UEFA.
He recommends preventive heart examinations for amateur athletes.
“Unusually high exercise intensities increase the risk of sudden cardiac death, especially among older recreational athletes and those returning to sports,” he says.
In Italy, where all amateur athletes who take part in competitions are examined, this has significantly reduced the number of sudden cardiac deaths.