[Fluffy]

2 Days ago Dani Jarque, captain of the Espanyol de Barcelona FC, passed away when his heart stopped while he was lying in his bed.

Dani was 26 years old, and in really good shape.


2 Years ago also in August Antonio Puerta from Sevilla FC died also from heart failure. He was only 23 and in really good shape.

2 Players might be too few to start thinking about epidemy, but certainly I don't think dying in your 20s for a heart problem given all the medic tests they are passing every few days is normal.

Thoughts?

[hotShot]

Heart attack (if no known heart disease exists)with young athletes usually has one of the following 2 reasons:

- To much/ to early training during a virus infection, this leads to a Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle)

- Blood-doping / EPO-doping (the blood gets too viscous because there are to much red blood cells or causes a thrombosis)

Since there is a lot of money involved both explanations have merits.

[Jlall]

Coke is a great drug!

[gwnn]

It's not only 2 players, three Hungarian athletes recently died (a rower, a hockey GK and a football player) during matches/training. Also Foe died on the field. It's very sad, I heard that it might be caused by soy products but who knows.

[helene_t]

About 125 athletes under 35 die each year in the U.S. alone
.....
the risk of a sudden cardiac death in that age group is probably one in 200,000

http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2008-03-...udent-athletes/

[babalu1997]

Exercise is for health.

If you are healthy, you do not need it.

If you are sick you should not take it.

(I think this is a paraphrase of a Mark twain quote)

So, I do not exercise. Not for the sake of exercise at least-- I walk places sometimes and always park the car away from the places where people hit parked cars.

[kfay]

These things happen. Ryan Shea was a great up-and-coming young marathon runner in the U.S. and was supposed to make the team for Beijing until his heart stopped while he was running in the qualifiers.

In his case he had an enlarged heart that actually made him a running phenom, but was very hazardous to his health. Doctors had cleared him to run, though.

The human body is not a machine, there are so many factors that influence how each organ functions that it is impossible to monitor them all. Also not all doctors are great at what they do, like any other job.

Being in great shape doesn't mean that their bodies still aren't under a lot of strain when they train because they train harder and longer than others. Sometimes the fact that they are so in shape masks normal warning signs that might show up in other people.

Jlall, if cocaine were involved people would know. I'm sure they performed an autopsy. Let these guys keep their good names.

[y66]

According to this report about a screening campaign for high-school athletes in Maryland,

Quote

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that sudden cardiac death from heart abnormalities is the leading cause of death among young people, causing more than 3,000 deaths each year.

Quote

According to Theodore Abraham, M.D., the Johns Hopkins cardiologist spearheading the campaign, athletes who have inherited tendencies to develop overly enlarged and thickened hearts have a heightened risk of sudden, potentially fatal heart rhythm disturbances. Healthy appearance and top physical condition, he says, can hide the warning signs, letting many cases go undiagnosed.

The student checkup includes a basic questionnaire to review any past history of chest pain, shortness of breath, fainting spells, or instances of sudden cardiac death in relatives. Tests include measurements of weight and blood pressure, and an examination for unusual heartbeats or murmurs. Each athlete will receive a cardiac ultrasound, or echocardiogram, to measure heart size and its pumping function and to check for faulty heart valves. An electrocardiogram, or EKG, to assess the heart’s electrical rhythms will also be given.

[Apollo81]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?...20of%20a%20drug