In the 1993 "erotic thriller" (everyone's favorite kind of thriller) Body of Evidence, Rebecca Carlson, played by Madonna, is taken to court for murder. Specifically, she's accused of having had rough or aggressive sex with a series of older rich men in order to cause their deaths. One survivor even says that she ended their relationship after he had heart surgery that made him healthier. Minor spoiler alert: she testifies on her own behalf and is eventually acquitted.

But her attorney, who she's been having rough sex with (natch), sneaks to her house after the trial and finds her with the doctor of one of her victims. The doc has coached her in how to kill men with sex. She taunts the doctor, who she's also been having sex with (natch), about how she can get him to do anything because of her world-class bedroom skills. When she tells him to get lost, he flies into a rage, eventually shoots her, and she falls out a window. I think there was some wrassling between the doctor and the lawyer in there somewhere. Aaaaaaaaand scene. At least that's how I remember it. I also remember some candle wax early in the movie, but I don't think it applies to the point I'm about to make. 

In a brand-new research letter in JACC (paywalled and not indexed by pubmed as of this writing), investigators studied 4557 cases of sudden cardiac arrest in or around Portland, Oregon, area between 2002 and 2015. Did I mention that Body of Evidence was set in Portland? Because it was. The mean age of the men was 65 years, which is prime Carlson Country, too.

They found that far less than <1% of cardiac arrest cases were linked to sex (34/4557, for an incidence of 0.28 per 100,000 adults per year). In 18 cases, the arrest occurred during sex. In 15, it was right after, and in one, the timing could not be determined. Only 1/3 of the people who had sex-associated cardiac arrests had any kind of bystander CPR. That's a hallmark of Rebecca Carlson if I've ever seen one. Also in the Rebecca Carlson tradition: almost 95% (32/24) of the sex-related cardiac arrests happened in men. The likelihood of a history of heart failure or heart disease was the same in sex-related and non-sex-related arrests. But men who had sex-associated arrests were on average five years younger than the non-sex-associated arrests. They were slightly more likely to be African-American, too. They note that an autopsy study in Germany came up with slightly higher risk, at around 0.2% of cases linked to sex.

So women: have all the high-intensity sex you want. You're safe. Men: If you're willing to roll the dice on your own personal Rebecca Carlson, the die is probably 100-sided, and you only die if it lands on the 100. Proceed accordingly.