New studies have discovered that sexual activity in reality rarely causes cardiac arrest, unlike it is portrayed in most movies.
The researchers noted that sex was linked to only 34 out of more than 4,500 cardiac arrests that occurred in the Portland, Ore., metropolitan area between 2002 and 2015. That's a rate of just 0.7%.
According to the study, 18 of such cases occurred during sex and 15 immediately after sex.
"I'm a little surprised at the really tiny number," said study senior researcher Dr. Sumeet Chugh, medical director of the Heart Rhythm Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. "But mostly I feel it's reassuring data."
Chugh said it is a bit of a good news for patients with heart problems who aren't sure if sexual intercourse could be unsafe.
"Previously we would say the risk is probably low, but we don't know how low, now we have data and we can say to them the risk is very low," Chugh stated.
The new reports are part of a 16-year study of heart risk factors linking about a million people living in and around Portland.
"Sexual activity is just one variable in the whole big picture" of cardiac risks, but one that hasn't been studied in depth, Chugh said.
The findings indicated that men are more likely than women to have their heart stop as a result of sex. Just two of the 34 cardiac arrest patients were female.
However in general, sex was connected to only 1 percent of all cardiac arrests that happened in men.
Other heart experts said they weren't shocked by the results.
Sex just isn't as vigorous as people believe. The aerobic activity associated with sex is equivalent to climbing two flights of stairs, explained Dr. Nieca Goldberg. She is director of the NYU Center for Women's Health and an AHA spokeswoman.
Dr. Martha Gulati, chief of cardiology for the University of Arizona College of Medicine, said, "Although a lot of us think sex requires an extreme level of activity, even in the most thrilling situations it's not as intense as people imagine it."
The safety of sex comes up from time to time with patients who've suffered a heart attack or have been diagnosed with a heart problem, Goldberg and Gulati said.
Sex is safe for most heart patients, except they are unable to maintain even low levels of activity or have symptoms that keep them from doing daily routines like making the bed or cleaning the house.
Goldberg suggested that "doctors really should be discussing this information with their patients to assuage their fears they may have after a cardiac diagnosis, that most people return safely to having sexual activity."
Chugh added that there's hope for people who have a cardiac arrest from sex because they're almost twice as likely to survive.
About 19 percent of the patients in sex-related cardiac arrest cases survived their ordeal, compared with an average survival rate of around 10 percent nationwide, he said.

Source: http://www.healthdiary365.com/2017/11/13/discover-if-sex-really-trigger-cardiac-arrest/