Genetics of sudden death from heart disease

Sudden cardiac death, or SCD, is a big health problem. In SCD, your heart stops beating. And you stop breathing. Something messes up or stops the signals that tell your heart to beat. It is different from a heart attack. In a heart attack, part of your heart does not get the blood it needs. It damages your heart. A heart attack can lead to SCD. SCD causes half of all heart disease deaths each year. Heart failure can put you at risk. So can heart disease. Some diseases can change the shape of your heart over time. Like diabetes. Or high blood pressure. The walls of your heart may get thick. This can make it harder to pump blood to your body. Changes in the shape of your heart can put you at risk for SCD. Or, you may have a genetic disorder that affects your heart rhythm. This can also put you at risk. Gene changes can affect your heart in many ways. Each gene change may play a small part. Having one gene change may not affect your risk. But the gene changes can add up. The more you have, the bigger the risk. But many people who die from SCD do not have heart problems. Or heart shape changes. Or genetic heart problems. They are often in their 30s or 40s. They may have a family member who died from SCD. But most of the time, we do not know why. Their heart just stops. Scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center want to know more about SCD. They will use BioVU to try to find gene changes linked to SCD. They will first look for gene changes that raise your risk for SCD. They will check if patients with these gene changes have any of the other risks for SCD. Like heart disease. Or heart rhythm problems. Then they will look for other people who are and are not at risk for SCD. They will check for gene changes. They think that people at risk will have more gene changes. The goal is to find a way to better predict who is at risk for SCD. The earlier we know, the more we can do to keep your heart beating. Their results may also help us find a new way to prevent SCD.