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Health

Study: Stress tests can warn of risk for sudden heart death

People whose hearts beat too fast during rest and too sluggishly during exercise have a greater risk than others of dropping dead suddenly from a heart attack, a study suggests.

The research, thought to be the first on sudden death in healthy people, relied on stress tests like the ones often given to people with heart problems.

Experts said the findings don't mean healthy people should have routine stress tests. But they said when heart patients get the tests, doctors should study the heart rate pattern for signs of trouble and not just look for evidence of blocked arteries.

"We know there are people who are walking time bombs," said Dr. Michael S. Lauer, a staff cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who was not involved in the study. While there's no proof early intervention prevents premature deaths in such people, he said, "I would fix absolutely everything that can be fixed."

The latest study, in today's New England Journal of Medicine, found the risk of sudden death was about four times higher than normal in men whose hearts beat fast while resting or didn't speed up as much as they should during exercise. Likewise, sudden death was twice as likely in men whose heart rates didn't slow down enough in the minute after exercise ended, compared with men with normal shifts in heart rate.

The French study followed 5,713 middle-aged, male French civil servants who had stress tests during physical exams between 1967-72. Over an average 23-year followup, 83 died of sudden cardiac death, on average within 11 1/2 years.

[Last modified May 12, 2005, 00:31:16]