What causes a sudden cardiac death in someone who had no symptoms?
“We’ve known for years that in a lot of cases the first symptom of heart disease is death. In 20 percent of those cases it’s the younger men, less than 60, that this happens to, not the older men, in their 70s and 80s. These younger men probably had a lot of risk factors. What really happens is there’s plaque in the coronary vessels that ruptures. The body tries to seal up that rupture with blood clots. That blocks the vessel, and the heart suddenly goes into a bad rhythm, known as fibrillation, and that’s what they die from.” What triggers the rupture? Stress and nicotine use are just two possibilities, Wassmer said. A report from Harvard University medical school says anger, heavy physical exertion, sexual activity, grief, natural disasters or simply waking from sleep can trigger a heart attack, cardiac arrest or stroke. When does plaque start forming? Can you have it and not know it? “We know from autopsies done on Korean War GIs in their 20s that they already had significant block
