The Dublin City Coroner told the family of a young man whose body was discovered in his apartment three days after attending a new year's party that he believed he may have died from Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (Sads).
The body of Andrew McLoughlin (34), Castleforbes Apartments, Dublin, was found on January 4th after friends became concerned when he failed to turn up for work, Dublin City Coroner's Court heard.
The Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, who carried out a postmortem, told the court he was unable to determine a cause for Mr McLoughlin's death.
There were no injuries to his body, the toxicology screen was negative for drugs and no third-party involvement was suspected. He said Mr McLoughlin's death could fall into the category of Sads and advised the family it would be prudent to seek further screening for the condition.
He told the court the syndrome fell into three categories: cardiomyopathy-related deaths; electrical disturbances and a condition where the movement of electrolytes in the heart are disturbed. Mr McLoughlin had no evidence of cardiomyopathy, the court heard. The coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, told the inquest that although they had been unable to find any obvious cause for Mr McLoughlin's death, he felt it was probably a cardiac event.
"Unfortunately we are not able to say what the precise cause of Andrew's death was. We're left with this group of deaths under the heading of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, which are due to cardiac abnormalities," he said.
"My own feeling is that Andrew died in his sleep and the probability is that this was a cardiac event, but it's just an opinion and I can't confirm this. My own feeling is this is natural causes." He returned an open verdict.
The court heard that Mr McLoughlin attended a friend's party on Lime Street on New Year's Eve and returned home the following morning shortly after 7am.
Fintan Ryan, who walked as far as the IFSC with Mr McLoughlin, told the court he was in good form when he left him.
A toxicology screening revealed Mr McLoughlin had a moderate level of alcohol in his blood.