Heart disease is one disease that many feared by society. Some people can survive from Heart disease while others do not. What makes a person at risk of sudden cardiac death? The team of researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center report in the British Medical Journal’s Health that there are certain factors that can make a person more at risk of sudden cardiac death.
“Sudden cardiac death usually occurs before or when the patient arrived at the hospital. So, only a little effort can do to save him,” said Dr. Elsayed Z Soliman, as quoted from Healthland Time). Expect the first step in reducing the incidence of sudden cardiac death to be identifying risk factors. This condition occurs when the heart stops suddenly and unexpectedly, preventing blood flow to the brain and other vital organs leading to death within minutes.
These factors are expected to help physicians and patients in identifying a person at high risk.
Researchers found these factors:
-
- Ethnicity, researchers found people with black ethnicity were more likely to die of heart attacks before reaching hospital.
- Having high blood pressure. If someone has a history of high blood pressure or hypertension can increase the heart rate so that a strong predictor of sudden death.
- Value of body mass index (BMI), a person who has high or low BMI values? Significantly associated with a greater risk of sudden death, but does not increase the risk of coronary heart disease.
- ECG examination results, test ECG (electrocardiograph) performed to measure the rhythm of the heartbeat. If test results are abnormal then it could be the strongest predictor of
sudden cardiac death.
These factors are generally non-causal, which means not necessarily the person with the above criteria can not escape from cardiac death, but those that do not include this criterion may not be completely protected. For that everyone still needs to maintain health by doing a good diet and an overall healthy lifestyle to avoid the risk of sudden death.