[ryanwaggoner]

I can't accept that this guy really was in perfect health; if he was, he wouldn't have suffered a major cardiac arrest while simply jogging on a treadmill.

That may or may not be the case. I suspect that the vast majority of cases of sudden cardiac arrest are attributable to risk factors, but probably not all. Our bodies are pretty incredible, but not perfect. Sometimes they just malfunction.

[graeme]

Do you have any evidence for that? Cardiac arrest is a pretty major malfunction.

I'll grant that there may be a few cases of spontaneous malfunction among people with systems functioning optimally.

But I'd wager that given the knowledge someone had cardiac arrest, the odds of something being wrong with their system are higher than 99.999%.

Specifically, I'd be interested in cases of spontaneous cardiac arrest among hunter gatherers or other groups that largely avoid the 'diseases of civilization'.

[carbocation]

See my parallel comment. Aside from a possible genetic defect, it's quite possible that this person is healthy by all normally measured features. In the general case, a hunter gatherer lifestyle would likely have triggered this sooner, if anything.

[graeme]

A genetic defect, if not impacted by lifestyle, would do the trick. However, 'normally measured features' may not fully capture cardiac health.

I'd still like to see studies of cardiac arrest among hunter gatherers, or as another poster commented, primates. Lots of genetic problems can be impacted by lifestyle (epigenetics).

I don't know about about the condition you posted to say how lifestyle affects gene expression in that case.

Assuming the disease isn't strongly affected by gene expression, my statistics are likely off then. Wikipedia listed the condition as having a .2-.5% prevalence.

[tomhoward]

Specifically, I'd be interested in cases of spontaneous cardiac arrest among hunter gatherers or other groups that largely avoid the 'diseases of civilization'.

+1

It would also be interesting to know about any similar studies on the most advanced species of non-human primates.

[tomhoward]

I think we largely agree - differing only on the interpretation of the word "perfect".

In my interpretation, perfect health means this type of malfunction doesn't happen. But these days, such perfection is very rare, though it's possible with sufficient knowledge and access to diagnostics.

[skrebbel]

By that definition, perfect health doesn't exist.

[tomhoward]

False; it's just very unusual in modern times.