Once in a while, or maybe all too often, we hear of a young athlete, even as early on as high school, suddenly, and seemingly mysteriously, dying in action while playing sports or otherwise dying suddenly, usually during some sort of physical exertion. The reason that most health experts and fitness gurus are saying this happens, is most commonly an enlarged heart, something that needs more agressive screening and preventive medicine and diagnosis to prevent these sorts of things from happening.

Many times we will hear of a twenty-something marathon runner suddenly dying, usually for unknown reasons until an autopsy is done finding they had an undiagnosed, or maybe even diagnosed, enlarged heart. Someone with an enlarged heart or an irregular heart beat may not be able to tolerate prolonged physical exertion like those with normal, healthy hearts, and therefore may immediately suffer an arrest when the physcial activity just becomes too much for the heart to bear.

Although having an enlarged heart may not make physical activity that involves exertion impossible or even not recommended, it may definitely help to have the ordinary screenings that definitely help to catch these types of cardio problems and prevent potential sudden death for younger athletes. Some are pushing for more uniform screenings in young athletes and family history gathering so these types of cardiac issues can be identified upfront and a preventive regimen can be followed for the patient.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Health and Fitness News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.