What can we ordinary people do when faced with sudden death?

Recently, the incident of a student from Shanxi University of Finance and Economics dying suddenly while running has once again become a hot topic and has become a hot topic among everyone. Faced with such incidents, many schools are particularly afraid of public opinion, which is actually a very backward concept. In fact, it would be best if things could be handled in a timely, open and transparent manner. Just like the sudden death incident at Shanxi University of Finance and Economics, from the public information, there was no obvious mistake, but they had to wait for public opinion to arise.

Today I want to talk to you about sudden death. What can we ordinary people do?

01. About Sudden Death

Sudden death is currently basically unsolvable and is a medical problem. For sudden death, cardiopulmonary resuscitation is required within a short period of time (a few minutes), otherwise there is no way to save the patient.

During this period, all you can do is emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation. If there happens to be an AED device nearby, that would be even better. As for waiting for a doctor to come to the rescue or even an ambulance, there is basically not enough time.

Therefore, don’t think that it is shameful because someone has died and start trying to cover up public opinion. This will only result in public opinion and give a lot of space for rumors.

In the future, it may be necessary to strengthen cardiopulmonary resuscitation rescue guidance for college students (but from a practical point of view, it is actually very effective, and even if the medical staff does not perform similar operations frequently, the possibility of saving lives is not great).

It may be a good idea to equip sports venues such as playgrounds and gymnasiums with facilities such as AEDs, but how to operate them is also a problem. Imagine that many people don’t know how to use the most basic fire extinguisher.

Next, let’s talk about why sudden death occurs.

02. Why does sudden death occur?

There is a saying that is very meaningful, that is, normal people will not die suddenly. In fact, this saying basically explains the truth of sudden death. Because people who die suddenly basically have underlying diseases, but these diseases are not usually discovered, and sometimes they occur, thus causing sudden death.

Therefore, many people would think that they look very normal but suddenly die suddenly. In fact, this "looks very normal" is a problem.

According to research, common factors causing sudden death include cardiovascular disease, trauma, respiratory disease, and nervous system disease. The most common of these is sudden cardiac death, which is sudden death caused by heart disease, accounting for more than 80%. Exercise is a common factor causing sudden cardiac death.

There are many direct causes of sudden cardiac death. For example, catecholamines, such as dopamine and adrenaline, are familiar to everyone. They can increase the excitability of the sympathetic nerves and speed up the body's metabolism. However, if the coronary artery spasms or embolism occurs at this time, the myocardial blood supply will be insufficient, further ischemia and hypoxia will occur, leading to sudden cardiac death.

Translated into human language, it means that the body is too excited and the heart cannot keep up with the rhythm, so it becomes blocked.

Another example is the pathological changes of the cardiac conduction system. In the case of His bundle-Purkinje fiber system functional block or sick sinus syndrome, if the sympathetic nerves are overexcited, the mechanical reflex of the ventricular wall will be oversensitive, and the left ventricular contraction will increase sharply. The body will mistakenly think that the left ventricular capacity is overloaded, so the sympathetic nerves begin to inhibit the excitement of the vagus nerve, the conduction velocity decreases significantly, the heart rate begins to slow down, and finally sudden death occurs.

In human language, your brain thinks you are too excited, so in order to avoid the previous situation, it asks your heart to beat slower. Then your heart stops beating.

In addition, some genetic factors have been found to be related to sudden cardiac death. For example, studies have found that SCN5A, which encodes the cardiac sodium ion channel, is the main pathogenic gene of early repolarization syndrome that can cause sudden cardiac death.

This is easy to understand, it's a debuff that comes with being born, and there is currently no viable medical intervention plan.

But have you noticed that all of the above are just inducements?

The root cause is that the heart function itself is not normal.

Almost all people who suffer from sudden cardiac death have heart-related diseases, such as congenital heart disease, myocarditis, heart failure, abnormal heart structure or abnormal heart rate.

It's just that these diseases are more hidden and difficult to detect in daily life. So the body looks normal on the surface, but it is more vulnerable than normal people.

When there are signs of sudden death, emergency rescue is the most effective way, such as "cardiopulmonary resuscitation" that we have been learning since childhood. Families with patients diagnosed with heart disease may use defibrillators, but the purpose is to quickly restore the heartbeat, thereby creating the possibility of emergency treatment in the hospital.

03. Prevention is better than cure

Prevention is more useful than first aid.

First, have regular physical examinations.

Many people don't have the habit of doing physical examinations, or they often ignore the heart when doing physical examinations, resulting in potential heart problems not being discovered. Therefore, it is recommended that everyone have regular physical examinations and pay attention to heart health.

Of course, in addition to sudden cardiac death, there are also sudden cerebral death, sudden pancreatitis, accident-related death, etc. So if you feel chest pain, chest tightness, long-term headaches or long-term fatigue, you also need to focus on these parts during the physical examination.

Secondly, when doing strenuous exercise, you should warm up sufficiently, and non-professional athletes should also control the intensity of exercise. Sudden death caused by exercise is very common, and the cause is often due to heart disease plus excessive release of catecholamines caused by exercise.

As for death from overwork, which is of great concern to the general public, there is no targeted research at present, but it is generally believed that it is mainly due to existing heart problems, such as coronary heart disease, arterial embolism, etc. Long-term overwork, coupled with staying up late to work overtime, irregular diet, etc., will lead to abnormal metabolism of the body and reduced repair ability, which will eventually cause death from overwork.

To avoid sudden death, let's start with you and me. Let's have regular physical examinations, exercise moderately, keep a normal schedule, and eat regularly.