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Abstract
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This editorial refers to 'Sports-related sudden cardiac arrest in young adults' by P. Bohm et al., https://doi.org/10.1093/europace/euac172.
Leisure-time exercise was already encouraged by the European, Chinese, and Indian ancestries to remain fit, thus highlighting that an excellent physical condition has been central for subsistence during the large part of human history. In recent years, the advent of obesity and metabolic syndrome prompted a much stronger promotion of moderate to vigorous exercise to overcome the pernicious effects of sedentarism and struggle with cardiovascular disease pandemics. Such campaigns may have improved the quality of life and reduced cardiovascular risk factor burden but have been paradoxically threatened by significant cardiovascular side effects. Current evidence supports that long-term strenuous endurance exercise increases the risk of cardiac arrhythmias1 and, possibly, impairs vascular function.2 Foremost, strenuous bouts of endurance exercise have been associated with an increased risk of sudden death.3 The haemodynamic and metabolic stress characterizing intense bouts of exercise may elicit cardiac instability, trigger ventricular arrhythmias, and eventually result in sudden death, particularly in those individuals with pre-existing cardiac conditions. From a numerical and relative point of view, sudden cardiac death (SCD) events in athletes are extremely infrequent, but they have a terrible individual and societal impact, substantiating the need for research in the field, along with the implementation of preventative measures such as pre-participation screening. Whether such efforts have sufficed to modify the epidemiology of SCD warrants continuous monitoring...
Language: en |