They haven’t said exactly what Hampton has, but based on the proposed treatment, a fib is most likely.

Obviously, athletes can have dysrhythmias (and lethal ones at that—note the late Ryan Shay in last year’s Olympic marathon trials, or Len Bias many years ago), but I always wonder what the physiologic basis for the problem is (in Shay’s case, he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; Bias had a massive MI after cocaine). And in the elderly who develop atrial fibrillation, it is often secondary to enlargement of the atria themselves. The enlargement disrupts the normal pathways of electrical conduction and leads to the dysrhythmia, but the enlargement itself is always due to something—either a valve issue causing blood to back up, or sometimes damage to the heart muscle from ischemia. At any rate, in the elderly, a fib is usually due to some kind of chronic issue. The dysrhythmia can seem to come on suddenly (it has to start sometime), but the underlying condition was usually there for while.

The suddenness still just seems odd to me. As thoroughly as these guys are checked out (this has got to be his third physical in the past year!), you’d think they’d have picked up any kind of underlying condition before. Hate to say it, but hopefully he hasn’t put all his millions up his nose, because cocaine will sure as hell mess up your heart.