It’s a part of many a classic television and movie script.  A prominent character involved in a tryst with a younger woman, often not his wife, suddenly dies of a heart attack adding to the drama or comedy to the story.   German medical researchers must have been watching the same shows because they set out to investigate the reality of that portrayal. Their results - patients with heart disease need not worry - researchers find sex doesn't seem to trigger heart attacks, strokes or other unpleasant events.

Scientists questioned 536 heart disease patients aged between 30 and 70 years about their sexual activity before and after heart attacks, strokes and other types of sudden cardiovascular death.  About 15 percent of the patients said they'd had no sexual activity in the 12 months before their heart attack, 25 percent said they'd had sex about once a week and 55 percent said they had sex more than once a week, the team reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Over the next 10 years, there were 100 heart attacks, strokes or other adverse events in the group.  The researchers looked to see what type of sexual activity had been going on before these events. Less than 1 percent of the patients said they'd had sex within an hour before.

NBC News is reporting that the American Heart Association is advising that sex after a heart attack is OK but that patients don't always get that message.

BSIP/UIG via Getty Images
BSIP/UIG via Getty Images
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