What is sudden arrhythmic death syndrome?

Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome affects around 500 people every year

Dr Nick Scriven, former president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said the NHS urgent care system is ‘pressurised like never before’ (Peter Byrne/PA) (PA )

Heart attacks are a major cause of death in the UK with 66,000 people dying every year after suffering one.

A cardiac arrest is when your heart suddenly stops pumping blood around your body, which stops your breathing and starves your brain of oxygen.

While there are 1.4 million people alive in the UK having suffered one, a complication can be serious and deadly.

Here, we take a look at what sudden arrhythmic death syndrome is and how many people it affects each year:

What is sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS)?

The British Heart Foundation says sudden arrhythmic death syndrome - also known as SADS - is when “someone dies suddenly and unexpectedly from a cardiac arrest, but the cause of the cardiac arrest can’t be found”.

This affects around 500 people every year and often happens when an abnormal heart rhythm, known as an arrhythmia, goes untreated.

Arrhythmias or heart rhythm problems are experienced by more than 2 million people in the UK, according to the NHS, and most people can lead a normal life if it is diagnosed in time. Sometimes the heart condition can be inherited.

There are a few conditions that can cause SADS because of very subtle changes to the heart, the charity has said. These conditions include different types of cardiomyopathy, which are a set of disease of the heart muscle which affects its size, shape or thickness. These cannot always be prevented but can sometimes be inherited. You might be at greater risk due to diet, alcohol and high blood pressure.

SADS can be declared the cause of a person’s death in a post-mortem when the cause of the heart attack cannot be explained. This is different to a sudden cardiac death, when it can transpire there was something wrong with the structure of the heart.