Heart-stopping sex can and does happen – usually to men

Heart-stopping sex is rare, but when it occurs it usually happens to a man, says one of the first large studies to examine sudden cardiac arrest during or just after sex.

Sex is linked to about 1 in 100 cardiac arrests in men and 1 in 1,000 in women, according to the study presented Sunday at a meeting of the American Heart Association and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

“The findings are reassuring” for people with heart disease concerned that sex might be dangerous, said senior author Sumeet Chugh of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles. “Now we can tell them the risk is very low.”

Cardiac arrest occurs when an electrical malfunction causes the heart to stop. Most victims die. It’s different from a heart attack, in which blood flow to the heart is cut off.

The study looked at 4,557 sudden cardiac arrests over several years in Portland, Ore., and found just 34 happened during sexual intercourse or in the hour afterward. Men suffered twothirds of all sudden cardiac arrests but at a much higher rate when linked to sex — 32 out of the 34 cases.

“If you ask me why that is, I just don’t know,” Chugh said. It’s possible, he said, that men have more underlying risks or that some took risky medications or supplements.

A report published in 2012 suggested additional risk factors for men who died during sex: “The majority (75%) were having extramarital sexual activity, in most cases with a younger partner in an unfamiliar setting and/ or after excessive food and alcohol consumption.”

In the new study, there was another finding: Just one-third of people who collapsed during or after sexual intercourse received CPR, Chugh said —“despite the fact that you are usually guaranteed a bystander.”