*** Welcome to piglix ***

Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome

SUNDS
Synonyms sudden unexpected nocturnal death syndrome (SUNDS), sudden adult death syndrome (SADS), bed death
Classification and external resources
ICD-10 R96.0
[]

Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS), also known as sudden adult death syndrome, sudden unexpected/unexplained death syndrome (SUDS) or sudden unexpected/unexplained nocturnal death syndrome (SUNDS), is a sudden unexpected death of adolescents and adults, mainly during sleep. Sudden unexpected death syndrome is rare in most areas around the world. This syndrome occurs in populations that are culturally and genetically distinct and people who leave the population carry with them the vulnerability to sudden death during sleep. Sudden unexplained death syndrome was first noted in 1977 among southeast Asian Hmong refugees in the US. The disease was again noted in Singapore, when a retrospective survey of records showed that 230 otherwise healthy Thai men died suddenly of unexplained causes between 1982 and 1990: In the Philippines, where it is referred to in the vernacular as bangungot, which means "to rise and to moan in sleep" and in Japan it is known as Pokkuri which means “sudden and unexpectedly ceased phenomena”.

A Tokyo Medical Examiner reported that every year several hundred evidently healthy men are found dead in their beds in the Tokyo District alone. These observations indicate that the recent sudden deaths of Southeast Asian refugees are not a new occurrence, but rather an ongoing pattern of sudden deaths that appears in mainland Southeast Asia. Sudden unexpected death syndrome once caused more deaths among males than car accidents in Southeast Asia. Most of those affected are young males. Although there has been a significant amount of research on this topic, scientists have not been able to determine the exact cause; it is thought to be the body’s failure to accurately coordinate electrical signals that cause the heart to beat and the blood to keep flowing. This syndrome is also very difficult to detect even with extensive tests and an electrocardiograph reading.

Southeast Asian immigrants, who were mostly fleeing the Vietnam War, most often had this syndrome, marking Southeast Asia as the area containing the most people with this fatal syndrome. However, there are other Asian populations that were affected, such as Filipinos and Chinese immigrants in the Philippines, Japanese in Japan, and natives of Guam in the United States and Guam. Nonetheless, these particular immigrants who had this syndrome were about 33 years old and seemingly healthy and all but one of the Laotian Hmong refugees were men. The condition appears to affect primarily young Hmong men from Laos (median age 33) and northeastern Thailand (where the population are mainly of Laotian descent).


...
Wikipedia

...