Asian Americans face lower cardiac arrest survival despite equal CPR efforts

A heartbeat is just a normal thud—until it becomes abnormal and suddenly stops. If this is the case, it might be cardiac arrest.

Just recently, the son of NBA star LeBron James suffered from cardiac arrest but is now in stable condition. Bronny James is only 18 years old, so what are the odds?

You might want to watch out for your carb intake and unhealthy diet as a groundbreaking study reveals that Asian Americans are less likely to survive a cardiac arrest than white people.

Cardiac arrest or heart attacks happen when the heart suddenly stops beating. If this occurs, blood will also stop flowing to the rest of the body, which can result in a more severe condition.

This new study published in the Journal of American Heart Association found alarming disparities in the cardiac arrest survival rates of Asian and white adults in the US.

A team of researchers evaluated nearly 279,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, and the results were astonishing: Asian adults are eight percent less likely to survive a heart attack and have a fifteen percent lower chance of having stable mental outcomes compared to adult Caucasians.

Asian-Americans Less Likely to Survive Cardiac Arrest Despite Equal CPR Efforts

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According to Dr. Paul Chan, professor of medicine at St. Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute and the University of Missouri-Kansas City and researcher, the bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is normally a determinant of survival following an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

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The uncertainties of cardiac arrest

He concluded, “It is not entirely clear what may be driving the lower survival rate among Asian adults.”

Dr. Chan also shared that they are expecting lower rates of bystander CPR among Asian adults due to the wide array of skin colors within the Asian group.

But the data surprised them. “It is quite encouraging that bystander CPR rates for Asian adults were comparable to white adults,” Dr. Chan said.

These offer a glimmer of hope, but Dr. Joseph Wu, volunteer president of the American Heart Association and director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, emphasized that further research is needed to uncover the reasons for the disparity.

“The overall analysis indicates additional research is needed to better understand the gap in CPR survival and neurological outcomes among Asian adults after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.”

Although the study’s result is something that shouldn’t be ignored, there’s still room for more investigation based on the disparities.