A study of people who died suddenly during sexual intercourse showed that the death rate may not be unique to middle-aged men. Within the scope of the researches, 32 thousand sudden death cases over the age of 33 in Germany were examined and it was determined that 0.2 percent of them occurred during sexual intercourse. While the first cause of sudden death was a heart attack, more similar results were obtained in studies on sudden death and sexual activity in the USA, France and South Korea.
NOT JUST MIDDLE AGE MEN
A study recently published in JAMA Cardiology also found that this phenomenon is not unique to middle-aged men. London’s St. George’s University analyzed 6847 sudden death cases between January 1994 and August 2020, and it was found that only 17 (0.02 percent) of sudden deaths occurred in men who had intercourse during or within the last hour.
AVERAGE AGE OF DEATH 38
On the other hand, the average age of death detected was 38, and it was revealed that 35 percent of the cases were women. This rate is higher than that found in previous studies. These deaths were not due to heart attacks, as is typically seen in older men. In half of the cases (53 percent), the heart was found to be structurally normal and the cause of death was sudden arrhythmic death syndrome or sudden abnormal heart rhythm called Sads.
THERE ARE MORE PRESS REASONS
Aortic dissection was the second most common cause with a rate of 12%. This is where the layers in the wall of the great artery that comes from the heart, which supplies blood to the body, are torn and blood flows between the layers, causing it to swell and burst.
The remaining cases were due to structural anomalies such as cardiomyopathy (a heart muscle disease that makes it difficult for your heart to pump blood to the rest of your body) or to a rare group of genetic diseases known as channelopathies. An altered heart rhythm can cause a lack of oxygen (myocardial ischemia) and cause sudden cardiac arrest where the heart stops beating.
This new study suggests that sudden cardiac death in people younger than 50 is primarily due to sudden arrhythmic death syndrome or cardiomyopathies. Younger adults diagnosed with these conditions should seek advice from their cardiologist about the risks associated with sexual activity. However, the death rate revealed in the study shows that the risk of dying during intercourse is very low, even in people with existing heart conditions.