A study published in the Journal of American Medical Association today came to the “surprising” conclusion that requiring young athletes to be screened for heart conditions before competing reduces the occurrence of sudden death caused by those heart conditions.
The chart above shows the rate of sudden cardiovascular death for screened athletes (downward moving line) and nonscreened nonathletes (horizontal line). Over the term of the study, the athlete incident rate dropped from three to four times that of the nonathletes’ to approximately half of the nonathletes’.
Although the results of the study are not groundbreaking, it still good information to know.