Brittany Murphy's heart related death

Submitted by Kelly Galler on Mon, 2010-01-18 11:19

My sympathy goes out to the family. A tragic loss, related to heart disease, at such a young age. Heart disease comes in many shapes and sizes, not just build up in the coronary arteries. What do we know so far, that could have contributed to her death?

The coroner's report, says it appears to be natural. Brittany did have diabetes and we also have heard that she had a heart murmur.

Apparently when paramedics arrived, she was in full cardiac arrest. That means her heart was not pumping; it was either in a deadly rhythm called Ventricular Fibrillation or Ventricular Tachycardia (http://tinyurl.com/y9g27qh ) or possibly even asystole (flat line). CPR was performed, but they were not able to get her heart to start beating properly again.

So what may have caused he heart to stop? Diabetes ( http://www.diabetes.org/) is a very serious condition that contributes to heart disease. It has been reported that Brittany was very ill, with vomiting and flu-like symtpoms. Blood sugars levels can become out of control when someone becomes ill like this. That could be a major contributing factor. Having a congenital heart defect, that caused her to have a murmur on exam, could also be very important here. It is difficult to say anything more about that, since no other details have been given out about what kind of defect she had.

We won't know for sure, until the final autopsy results have been reported. The important thing that I want to stress, is that heart disease can happen at any age, to men and women both. Diabetes and heart murmurs are serious conditions that need to be well taken care of because they do increase your risk of heart attack and stroke.

Prevent sudden cardiac death: http://tinyurl.com/ybbgltl
Watch the hearts electrical system: http://tinyurl.com/yayn8gj
Learn more about your risks: http://familyatheart.org