In a hot Israeli summer in the Rambam hospital in the city of Haifa, a drama broke out, as if from the popular TV series Ambulance. The young man was brought in with acute appendicitis. God only knows what a complicated operation, if the diagnosis is correct and, most importantly, on time
Fortunately, the inflamed appendix was recognized early and successfully removed. The 33-year-old patient was transported to the ward. He has already come to his senses and assured the doctors that he feels fine. However, a nurse who looked in to see him soon found a corpse that had not yet cooled down.
The surgeons were shocked. A report on the incident was sent to the Ministry of Health, and an urgent commission was created there to find out the causes of the death. The doctors said that in all their practice they had never had to deal with such cases. During the operation and immediately after it there was not a single deviation from the norm. The patient's death looked completely mysterious. My heart just stopped suddenly.
This case is one of the many from the category of "sudden death". As you know, people do not always die in old age and in their own bed. However, the emerging trend towards an increase in unexpected deaths among the able-bodied young and by all indications of a healthy male population in the developed countries made doctors look for an answer to the question of why this is happening. Meanwhile, the statistics of sudden deaths is growing rapidly around the world, including in our country. Men of working age (in Europe, mostly from 30 to 60 years old) die for no apparent reason - at bus stops, in offices, at home watching TV. But mostly in a dream - pay attention to the characteristic feature. At the same time, most of them do not complain of indisposition and do not ask for help from others.
The suddenness of the loss of a loved one makes desperate relatives dig into the reasons. How so? Lived, lived - and suddenly died. Someone must be to blame for this! Not so long ago in the UK, the parents of a 24-year-old obstetrician, after his unexpected death, filed a lawsuit against the hospital management: they killed their son in the workplace. “He came from duty that day feeling very tired.” The lawsuit was not satisfied: these days there were no more women in labor than usual, and "universal" fatigue is one of the signs of an impending cardiovascular catastrophe. Each FIFA World Cup brings to the grave more than one hundred fans in the prime of life and thus worsens the statistics of “young” deaths. But here at least everything is clear - the release of adrenaline provokes a spasm of the coronary vessels, and you can safely make a corresponding entry in the account of the deceased. And what should the doctors of an Israeli hospital and their numerous colleagues around the world write, who, even after an autopsy, cannot understand what exactly caused a young and healthy body to shut down.
There is no definitive answer. Sudden death is one of the greatest medical mysteries of our time. In this regard, epidemiologists recall that almost 50 years ago they faced a similar riddle. Sudden death syndrome drove hundreds of young (30-45 years old) men to the grave every day in Japan, Laos, the Philippines and Thailand. Experts shrugged their shoulders: this has never happened in the history of medicine - men died in their sleep from cardiac arrest. Neither blood tests nor a thorough postmortem examination gave even a hint of a possible solution. All that the doctors could say about this (and the best specialists from all over the world were involved) was to admit their helplessness: it is probably a question of a mysterious disease, hitherto unknown to science. The disease is asymptomatic and, like a clockwork mechanism, turns off the heart,when it is at rest.
Then the news of a mysterious disease forced many men in this region to be examined from head to toe. With the diagnosis "healthy", some of them died literally the next night after the medical examination.
Isn't this story repeating itself now? We know that from Southeast Asia more and more terrible - more real, and not invented by pharmacologists - varieties of influenza come to us. We know, because we were sick and are sick with the flu with all its inherent symptoms. Well, what if, in addition to the flu, the world is struck by the same long-standing invisible disease, to which the body of Asian men has already developed immunity, and, say, European men - only gets used to it at the terrible cost of numerous deaths?
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Perhaps, cardiologists are again mistaken, believing that sudden cardiac arrest is the immediate cause of sudden death in the vast majority of cases? Yes, the normal rhythm of a healthy heart can suddenly be disrupted, and if you do not take drastic measures, death can occur in a few minutes or even seconds. It happens that a person does not even have time to understand what is happening with the rhythm of his heart, and instead of asking for help, he is surprised to see if there are interruptions in his never let down "motor", he anxiously listens to them, and when he realizes that it can be dangerous, the heart stops. But something is pushing the super-tolerant organ to this senseless behavior? What? Maybe doctors of other specialties should look for the answer?
World Health Organization statistics say that now around the world for one million people a week, thirty people suddenly die. If we transfer these figures, say, to Moscow, then we get at least fifteen hundred "unexpected dead" per month. In the United States alone, about half a million people die from sudden death every year. Moreover, there are many young and completely healthy people among them. Terrible numbers.
Previously, doctors agreed that the pathological thickening of the heart muscles was to blame. Now they are putting forward new versions - it seems that heredity is to blame. That is, if one of the relatives has already died of a heart attack, more attention should be paid to the examination by a cardiologist. Does this increase the chances of preventing unexpected death in the prime of life? Not much. That is the horror of sudden death, that it comes no matter how out of it.
Is the alcohol to blame? Yes, of course, prolonged use of alcohol can lead to a vascular catastrophe, but among the dead there are many people who practically do not drink. Maybe a weak body can't cope with everyday stress? But then why do sports people die, under close medical supervision? There are many of them in the gloomy statistics. Take, for example, the case of a Latvian hockey player. Sergei Zholtok, 31, suddenly felt unwell during the game. The doctors who arrived in time could not help him and only prolonged the agony of the rapidly failing heart. And this, alas, is far from the only death among young, healthy and constantly under medical supervision of male athletes.
How many sudden deaths occur in Russia is difficult to say. Every sudden cardiac arrest can be easily attributed to "use", especially since it does not contradict medical canons. But if one could contrive to "clear" the sad statistics from alcoholic plaque and also think about what the root cause of the mysterious young deaths really is, then perhaps a mysterious epidemic, if it really exists, will be able to calculate and try to find an effective remedy against her.
In Russia, the rate of sudden deaths, in contrast to Europe, starts already at the age of 22 - isn't this a cause for alarm? Or will we habitually blame everything on vodka? Until recently, demographers, taking into account negative factors, argued that in 2015 there will be at least 7 million more women in Russia than men. But then they conducted a census and found that ten years before the designated date, the number of women in the whole country was almost 10 million more than the number of men! The Russian man is clearly dying out, sometimes without even having time to leave behind offspring. But from what?