Professional basketball players have the highest rate of sports-related cardiac arrest in the United States, and a new study lays the groundwork for scientists to determine why.
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Investigators from Columbia University Medical Center in New York City examined the heart structure and function of more than 500 current NBA players. They found some significant differences between these hearts and those of other athletes and the general population.
Noting that the rate of sudden cardiac death, which occurs after the heart suddenly stops beating, is about 30 times higher among NBA players than other professional athletes, lead researcher Dr. David Engel said, "We needed to know what a normal heart looks like in an elite basketball player."
"There is very little information about the hearts of U.S. athletes," said Engel, a cardiologist at Columbia.
These basketball players are big men, Engel said, with an average height of 6 feet 7 inches and an average weight of 222 pounds.
The researchers looked at heart size and weight as well as its structure and function. They also evaluated the size of the aorta -- the biggest artery in the body that carries oxygen-rich blood away from the heart.
They found that heart size increased with the size of the athlete, which was expected. Also, basketball players have larger aortas than non-athletes, Engel said.
The researchers also found that the left ventricle, which pumps blood from the heart to the rest of the body, was larger than that of most adults, but proportional to the players' body size.
Additionally, many players had a thickening of the wall of the left ventricle, called left ventricular hypertrophy, which can be a sign of decreased heart function. It's also the most common cause of sudden cardiac death among basketball players, according to background notes in the study.
This condition was more common among black players than white players, Engel said. Black players also had heavier hearts than white players, the study found.
Most players had normal left ventricular ejection fraction, a measure of how well the left ventricle pumps blood, Engel said. ■