- explains Dr. Peter McCullough, Cardiologist

Jennifer Margulis

Dr. Peter McCullough in New York on Dec. 24, 2021. (Jack Wang/The Epoch Times)

At a conference for medical professionals in Sedona, Arizona this past weekend, several speakers–all physicians–commented on a disturbing trend: an increase in otherwise healthy people dying in their sleep.

Sudden unexplained age-inappropriate deaths seem to be happening more than usual, both in the United States, where these medical doctors practice, and in several other countries in the industrialized world.

Excess death “is a phenomenon all over the world at the moment,” said Dr. John Campbell, a nurse educator who has been meticulously following and commenting on the scientific data for his YouTube channel, which has 2.47 million subscribers.

The data shows that “deaths are 16 percent higher than we would expect,” Dr. Campbell said in a recent video, “and the vast majority of these are not COVID deaths.”

Statistics tell part of the story. Unusual deaths making headlines tell another part.

For example, South African actress, Franci Swanepoel, was found dead in her bed on Sunday morning, October 16. She was in the middle of filming a new project. Swanepoel was 50 years old. Her cause of death is not yet known, according to news reports.

 

Earlier this month, a young dad, Jack Grozier, was also found dead at his home in New Cumnock, Scotland. Just hours before, he had texted his girlfriend to say that he’d talk to her the next morning. Grozier was 23. He leaves behind a one-year-old son, according to the Irish Mirror.

 

Seventeen-year-old Gwen Casten, whose father is a lawmaker in the state of Illinois, also died in her sleep.

On October 7, 2022, Casten’s family issued a statement on Instagram explaining that their daughter, who had no known health or behavioral problems, died of a heart arrhythmia of an unknown cause.

“She had just come home from an evening with friends, went to bed and didn’t wake up,” the statement read.

Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist who is board-certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease, who presented at the conference, said that when people—especially young people—die in their sleep the underlying cause is often myocarditis.

Myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart, can lead to irregular heart rhythms that can be lethal without immediate treatment.

 

Dr. McCullough pointed to a “state-of-the-heart review” done by an international team of cardiologists published in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy this May. According to this study, many heart issues are being reported post-vaccination, with myocarditis being the most common. “While myocarditis is the highest reported cardiovascular ramification, other serious complications are also being increasingly reported,” the scientists wrote.

A Surge of Catecholamines

Though it may seem counterintuitive, Dr. McCullough said that sudden deaths that happen during sleep are biochemically similar to the sudden deaths during or just after vigorous exercise.

The reason people die seemingly inexplicably in their sleep, Dr. McCullough explained, is sometimes because of a surge in catecholamines during the end of the sleep cycle. This natural biochemical change is the body’s signal to wake up.

Catecholamines are hormones that are made by the adrenal glands. They are released into the body in response to physical exertion or emotional stress. But they are also released during sleep, just before waking, as a signal to the body and the brain that it is time to get up.

These catecholamines can increase our heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate, among other things.