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| SURVIVED: Fabrice Muamba & DIED: Miles Frost. In 2012, Premier League footballer Fabrice Muamba (pictured left), then 23, collapsed on the pitch at White Hart Lane; Miles Frost (pictured right), eldest son of broadcaster Sir David Frost, collapsed and died aged 31 in 2015 |
Hundreds of thousands of
people are living with a faulty gene that puts them at risk of sudden death, UK
experts warn.
Press
Association report continues:
New
estimates put the number in Britain living with an inherited heart condition at
620,000 – yet the vast majority have no idea of the threat to their health.
The
genetic disorders can go undetected until someone's heart suddenly stops
beating. Last night the British Heart Foundation called for better screening to
spot those with the defect, warning of huge variations across the country in
the current system.
As
recently as 2009, experts believed no more than 380,000 people in the UK
suffered from these inherited cardiovascular conditions.
This
estimate was then upped to 520,000, and last night was increased again to
620,000 thanks to up-to-date research on the genes involved. At least 624
people aged under 35 are thought to die each year from sudden cardiac death but
many more deaths may be mistakenly put down to other causes.
In
2012, Premier League footballer Fabrice Muamba, then 23, collapsed on the
pitch. His heart stopped for 78 minutes. He recovered and was diagnosed with
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, one of a list of heart conditions caused by
genetic factors.
Some
of these inherited defects give people a weak heart muscle, so blood is not
pumped properly around the body, while others cause an abnormal heart rhythm,
which means the heart could suddenly stop beating.
Other
forms mean patients have abnormally high levels of cholesterol, increasingly
their risk of dying from a heart attack by 100-fold. Last April, England
cricketer James Taylor was forced to retire at the age of 26 due to a rare form
of arrhythmia.
And
Miles Frost, eldest son of broadcaster Sir David Frost, collapsed and died aged
31 in 2015. It was discovered he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy but had not
been told that his father, who had died from a heart attack two years
previously aged 74, had the condition. Children have a 50 per cent chance of
inheriting the faulty gene from a parent who has it.
The
British Heart Foundation is calling for systematic screening across a patient's
family tree as soon as they are diagnosed. Some parts of the country – such as
the health service in Oxford – will track down family members and offer them
testing.
But
most areas of the UK are not nearly as thorough. Such defects can affect people
of any age, with most cases of sudden cardiac death occurring before 35. Yet if
they are spotted, effective treatments are available, such aa a pacemaker to
control an abnormal heartbeat or an implantable defibrillator to restart the
heart. Drugs such as statins can also be used.
Professor
Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: 'If
someone in your family has been diagnosed with or has died from what is
suspected to be an inherited heart condition, you should speak to your GP or
call our genetic information service for more information and support.
'The
reality is that there are hundreds of thousands of people across the UK who are
unaware that they could be at risk of sudden death.
'If undetected and untreated, inherited heart conditions can be deadly and they continue to devastate families, often by taking away loved ones without warning. We urgently need to fund more research to better understand these heart conditions, make more discoveries, develop new treatments and save more lives.'
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