What exactly is sudden death?
The word sudden death has appeared more and more frequently in recent years. So what exactly is sudden death?
The World Health Organization defines sudden death as an unexpected death that occurs within 6 hours of the onset of symptoms. However, more scholars believe that it is more appropriate to define sudden death as death within 1 hour after the first symptoms appear . Its characteristics are that there are few warnings before the onset, the onset is sudden, and the course of the disease is very fast.
Maybe you think that sudden death is a rare disease with a very low incidence, but the fact is that in recent years, the incidence of sudden death has been increasing year by year. Take my country as an example, the number of sudden deaths every year was about 545,000 more than ten years ago, and by 2018, this number has grown to about 1 million [1].
At the same time, the incidence of sudden death is getting younger and younger . In the past, sudden death was mostly concentrated in the 45-50-year-old group, but now, more and more young people are at high risk of sudden death.
What is even more frightening is that 65% of sudden deaths can kill people within 10 minutes of acute symptoms, which makes it too late for many people to get timely treatment by professional medical staff.
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| image credit douban |
According to the cause of sudden death, it can be divided into sudden cardiac death (sudden cardiac death) and non-sudden cardiac death. Among them, sudden cardiac death can account for 80% of all sudden deaths, and its occurrence is mostly related to acute attack of heart disease.
How far is sudden death from us?
A heart attack sounds so far away, it's hard to imagine it happening to me. However, the risk factors of sudden cardiac death are not only myocardial infarction, and you may not be unfamiliar with several others.
Studies have confirmed that basic diseases such as obesity, hyperlipidemia, hypertension, diabetes and atherosclerosis are closely related to the occurrence of sudden death.
Especially for cardiovascular disease, a retrospective study on the analysis of risk factors for sudden death found that 65.63% of patients with sudden death had a history of cardiovascular disease, and the probability of sudden death in patients with cardiovascular-related diseases was 6.78 times that without cardiovascular-related diseases [2] ].
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Obesity is a risk factor for sudden death, image source thepaper |
In addition to the influence of underlying diseases, smoking, drinking and other bad habits are also risk factors for sudden cardiac death. In the sudden death incident that just happened, Sun Qiaolu was an avid alcohol lover.
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| Smoking and drinking are risk factors for sudden death, picture source js118 |
There is another point that needs to be paid attention to. Although the last two sudden deaths occurred in women, in fact, sudden deaths prefer men. Men have a higher risk of sudden death than women at any age, which may be related to higher testosterone levels in men.
In addition, the causes of sudden cardiac death also include overeating, psychological stress, overwork, long-term staying up late, etc. These items are more familiar to office workers, so it seems that sudden death is not far away from us.
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| Image source shizheng.xilu |
Don't give up on treatment
Some people may want to ask, we have more or less touched the risk factors of sudden death, and the characteristic of sudden death itself is that the onset is sudden and unpredictable, so are we helpless in the face of sudden death?
In fact, there are still solutions.
Let’s talk about first aid measures in emergencies first. On the one hand, first aid medicine is used, and the most effective one is nitroglycerin . Especially for people with cardiovascular disease, standing first aid medicine is very important to prevent sudden cardiac death.
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| Nitroglycerin tablets, picture source see watermark |
On the other hand, it is recommended that everyone master the use of AED (automated external defibrillator), which is an effective way that non-professionals can use to rescue sudden cardiac death. In case of an accident around someone, we can help in time to help medical staff The rescue buys time.
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| Many public places are equipped with AED equipment. See the watermark for the source of the picture |
In addition to emergency rescue
what else can we do to prevent sudden death?
First of all, we must pay attention to the routine physical examination once a year to detect health risks in time. Especially if you have symptoms such as chest tightness and chest pain, you should be more vigilant.
Second, to maintain a good routine of life and rest. Avoiding overwork and staying up late is very important to maintain a healthy body.
In addition, comprehensive control of high-risk factors should be done well . In fact, many cases of sudden death are caused by the superposition of multiple risk factors. For example, if patients with cardiovascular disease themselves stay up late for a long time, are overworked, and smoke regularly, the risk of sudden death will be greatly increased. If risk factors are controlled early, the risk of sudden death can be reduced.
Work hard, but don't have to work hard. Regarding the sudden death of young people, do you also have a lot of feelings that you want to share with Meyo Clinic? Message me.
References:
[1] Yu Ziyue, Yue Liang, Wang Xiaolong. The annual sudden death rate in my country has risen to one million, you must know these first aid knowledge [D]. Science and Technology Daily, 2018-10-10.
[2] Yang Yuanyuan, Luo Min. Risk factor analysis and prevention measures of sudden death [J]. China Urban and Rural Enterprise Health, 2020, 35(12):99-101.