Heart problems very bad for athletes

We generally think of competitive athletes as super-duper healthy, but doctors at a heart conference pointed out that heart problems like arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat) actually pose a greater risk to those who go for gold. Athletes may not know they have a heart issue, and adrenaline produced during exercise can overstimulate the heart. However, screening all athletes for these kinds of problems could reduce the rate of death. Right now Italy is the only country that mandates this kind of screening for its pros.

The issue has garnered more attention lately following the deaths of football (that's soccer for the Americans) players Antonio Puerta, Chaswe Nsofwa, and Anton Reid. The docs estimate that Italy's screening program costs about $82 per athlete, but many countries hesitate to implement screening due to the relatively rare incidence of the conditions and questions about the effectiveness of the tests. I dunno, still seems like a small price to pay to potentially prevent 16-year-olds from dropping dead on the field.