About MedStory. Translating Science, One Story at a Time.
Hosted by DoM's Communications Team, MedStory videos make cutting-edge medical research easy to understand.
Through expert interviews and clear, engaging updates, we break down complex discoveries from Stanford Department of Medicine - bringing you the latest breakthroughs in accessible terms.
Episodes. Introducing and exploring the latest scientific discoveries.
Latest Episode: The Hidden Gene Behind Sudden Cardiac Death
They collapse without warning — on a track, on a field, mid-stride. Young athletes, often in peak condition, gone in an instant. For families, the shock is compounded by a cruel second discovery: the cause may be genetic, silently passed from one generation to the next.
“This disease was first discovered in Italy in a series of young people who had died suddenly while playing sport,” says Victoria Parikh, MD, a cardiologist at Stanford Department of Medicine. “You don’t see it coming. And then out of nowhere, a life is gone.”
She’s talking about arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, or ACM, a rare but devastating inherited heart disease. In its most common form, the heart’s muscle gradually breaks down and is replaced by fat and scar tissue. Caused by mutations in the PKP2 gene, the result is electrical chaos: dangerous arrhythmias that can send the heart racing at more than twice its normal rate, sometimes fatally.
