{"id":498633,"date":"2026-06-27T19:38:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T19:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/498633\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T19:38:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T19:38:30","slug":"what-causes-sudden-cardiac-death-ai-wades-into-medical-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/498633\/","title":{"rendered":"What causes sudden cardiac death? AI wades into medical mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is one of the oldest mysteries in medicine: Why do fundamentally healthy people drop dead? Sudden cardiac arrest kills upward of 350,000 people a year in the U.S., a fate that is particularly tragic because it\u2019s preventable with an implantable defibrillator.<\/p>\n<p>The challenge is figuring out who needs one.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-026-10674-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">study published in Nature on Wednesday<\/a> uses artificial intelligence to identify those people, and pinpoints a possible reason why they so often evade detection. It reports that a culprit once considered relatively benign \u2014 cardiac fibrosis, or scar tissue scattered throughout the heart \u2014 is commonly present in people with the highest risk of sudden death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-text\">STAT+ Exclusive Story<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-login\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"restricted-content-breaker-bg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"stat-plus-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tThis article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tUnlock this article \u2014 and get additional analysis of the technologies disrupting health care \u2014 by subscribing to STAT+.<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-breaker-wrapper-cta mobile\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta mobile\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tIndividual plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tGroup plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button view-all\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker view all plans\" aria-label=\"View All Plans\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">View All Plans<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-text\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTo read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button restricted-button\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker subscribe cta 1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is one of the oldest mysteries in medicine: Why do fundamentally healthy people drop dead? Sudden cardiac&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[363,6294,134,527,111,139,69,1518,1676],"class_list":["post-498633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-cardiovascular-disease","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-research","tag-stat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}