Physical exercise has a beneficial effect to the humans. Sudden death in healthy persons
engaged in physical exercise is extremely rare since healthy heart is protected from
complications. The records of five elderly men who died during or immediately after exercise
in the period between 1988–2001 in our region have been given, out of 23 men
(and no one woman) aged 14–68 who died due to physical exercise in that time. They
have been engaged in tennis, jogging and swimming recreatively. In all of them coronary
heart disease has been found by the forensic autopsy. Only one has had arterial hypertension,
symptoms of chest pain few years before accident and acute myocardial infarction
has been found. The other four have been without symptoms. In three of them
myocardial scars have been found of past myocardial infarctions. In all of them the
thickness of the left ventricle wall was 15 mm or more (from 15 to 25 mm). It seems that
the thickness of the wall of the left ventricle increases cardiovascular risk in persons
without symptoms. In Croatia about 7% of the whole population are engaged in recreation.
In this population 13% are elderly: 40,950. The reported five deaths due to recreational
physical exercise in the elderly reached 1/114,660 persons every three years, or
1/573,300 persons during fourteen years
