Sudden deaths during exercise linked to hidden heart disease When an apparently healthy young person collapses and dies during exercise or while taking part in sports, it usually winds up as a newspaper item and everyone assumes it could not have been prevented. Many could not; however, a Washington, DC, physician thinks it might be possible to prevent some of these deaths by being alert to the possibility of unusual and unsuspected heart disease. Richard R. Schwartz, MD, clinical instructor of medicine at Georgetown University presented his paper on "Sports, Death, and Unusual Heart Disease," at the American College of Cardiology meeting in New York. In addition to unsuspected heart disease, he urged physicians to pay special attention to patients with the sickle cell trait. "There are a lot of holes in our knowledge of this condition," he said. Dr. Schwartz and his co-authors selected 109 cases of sudden death for study