Krishnan Guru-Murthy has claimed that he questioned his doctor whether he’might drop dead’ on Strictly Come Dancing owing to a health problem.
The Channel 4 newsreader is one of the talents competing in the BBC competition’s 2023 series, among other well-known faces such as Layton Williams and Angela Scanlon.
The 53-year-old had previously declined invitations to partake in the dancing competition, but has now agreed to join the rest of the cast in the line-up for the latest season.
Krishnan went out about his ‘many health concerns’ in a new interview, including one that caused the deaths of two of his cousins.
‘I’m really starting to have this realisation: you have to get the absolute most out of life before you’re decrepit,’ he told The Guardian.
‘I’ve got various health issues, which I’m constantly aware of. I’ve got a genetic heart condition – hypertrophic cardiomyopathy – which has killed two of my cousins, Crohn’s disease, various other things I won’t bore you with.
‘I even asked my cardiologist if I might drop dead live on BBC One. No, was his answer – but he couldn’t give me an absolute guarantee.’
The presenter outlined how he has to be ‘careful’ of his heartbeat increasing to a certain level, the ‘final 15%’ in the ‘red zone’.
‘They’ve been asking me to do these sorts of shows for years. What if I kept saying no? It might not be physically possible for me to do it now – that remains to be seen. But it certainly won’t be possible in five years,’ he added.
The NHS explains that cardiomyopathy is ‘a general term for diseases of the heart muscle, where the walls of the heart chambers have become stretched, thickened or stiff. This affects the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body’.
Krishnan has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disorder in which the heart muscle cells expand and the walls of the heart chambers thicken.
The heart chambers cannot hold as much blood, because they are reduced in size, and ‘the walls cannot relax properly and may stiffen’.
‘Also, the flow of blood through the heart may be obstructed,’ the national health service outlines.
While the NHS stresses that most people who have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy don’t have symptoms and don’t need treatment, it is ‘the most common cause of sudden unexpected death in childhood and in young athletes’.
Strictly Come Dancing returns this month on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
Source My Celebrity Life.
