This life threatening heart condition is still rare in children and young adults. But a study in the journal Circulation. which analyzed 30 years of data from Washington state. is still troubling.
The analysis pegs the amount of young people who have suffered from cardiac arrest at 2.3 per 100,000 a year. That's not a big risk, but the figure is substantially higher than the previously accepted estimate for young athletes, which is one in every 200,000.
Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops pumping blood to the body. Without immediate treatment, it's usually fatal.
