November 18, 2009

Men are at a relatively high risk of Sudden Cardiac Death over their lifetime compared to women.

That's according to a new study presented at the American Heart Association's annual meeting on Sunday.

It says that the lifetime risk in men aged 40 and over is 1 in 8, or 12.3%.
That's triple that of women, whose risk is 1 in 24 or just over 4%.
Traditionally, estimates have focused on a person's risk of Sudden Cardiac Death over the next 10 years.

These new numbers are the first lifetime estimates for Sudden Cardiac Death.
Authors looked at studies on Sudden Cardiac Death data on nearly 5,000 U.S. adults involved in 3 major heart studies.

Of those, African American men had roughly twice the risk as white men at any given age, while black and white women had roughly the same risk all the way through.
You can read more about the study in the New England Journal of Medicine online.