Diagnosing the Heart of the Problem
© 1993 Nature Publishing Group http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics • editorial nature volume 4 no. 3 july 1993 Diagnosing the heart of the problem In the glamorous world of professionaJ sports, into the spotlight. Last year, the teenage son of few athletes are lucky enough to escape physicaJ Terry Yorath, a former Welsh international soccer injury at some time or other. Debilitating ailments player and the current team manager, suddenly such as torn anteriorcruciate ligaments and rotator collapsed and died while playing soccer at home. cuffs are seemingly as commonplace in the sports And just three months ago, on April 29, Reggie pages as the anatomy textbooks. There is a growing Lewis, the 27-year-old captain of the Boston awareness, however, that the strenuous physical Celtics, collapsed onto the parquet floor of the exertion of competitive athletes carries its own Boston Garden during a crucial basketball playoff potentially life-threatening risks. In the United game. Initial tests by the team physician failed to States, heart failure, not physicaJ injury, is the discern a serious problem, but when Lewis most common form ofsudden death among young returned to the game he complained of further athletes: more than 100 athletes have died of dizzy spells. Later in hospital, the team doctor sudden heart failure during the past 10 years, assembled what he called a 'Dream Team' of 12 whereas only half that figure succumbed to severe eminent cardiologists who proclaimed that Lewis physicaJ trauma. suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, A relatively well-known cause of sudden death invoking instant memories of Gathers. Not among athletes is Marfan syndrome, which claimed surprisingly, the front page of The Boston Globe the life of volleyball player Flo Hyman.
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