• Question: How do you die in your sleep?

    Asked by shellora25 to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 20 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Artem Evdokimov

      Artem Evdokimov answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      Well, since death can be caused by any number of events, you could e.g. suffer a fatal heart attack while sleeping… that’s a pretty grim subject! I prefer to think about life and how really insanely amazing it is to stay alive despite so many things that can go wrong at any given time.

    • Photo: John Short

      John Short answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      Although heart failure and heart attacks is a common cause, strokes can also kill you in your sleep, where a blood clot forms, blocking arteries and prevents oxygen going to your brain. Clots are more likely to form when you are very old as people generally develop higher blood pressure due to diet, ageing, lack of exercise and movement.

      However, a study in 2005 said that a cumulative loss of cells in the area of the brain that controls breathing is to blame in many cases – triggering a condition called central sleep apnoea. We slowly lose these cells over time, and it has been shown in rats that they die when these cells are lost or destroyed.

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