The unexplained, sudden death of anyone up to the age of 35 is frequently recorded as death from natural causes but experts are increasingly coming to believe that many of them are actually due to Sudden Death Syndrome – also known as Sudden Cardiac Syndrome.

Often there are no warning signs.  Usually the person will have died while going about his or her everyday life.

Recently the condition has been highlighted by a number of high profile deaths.

The dynamic Manchester City midfielder Marc Vivien Foe, 28, died from a heart-related illness while playing for his country, Cameroon, in the Confederations Cup last year; Daniel Yorath, 15, whose sister Gaby presents ITV’s On The Ball, died in his back garden while playing football with his dad, the former Wales coach, Terry Yorath and junior swimmer Laura Moss, 13, who was a member of the elite Olympic Swim 2000 Squad, died warming up at a school swimming gala.

And last week Metro News reported how 15-year-old Mohammed Ejaz Majid died after collapsing during morning assembly at Burnage High School.  He was described as fit and healthy.  His family were told he died of a heart condition that they never knew he had.  His older sister, Bulqees Majid, 19, described her brother’s death as a “terrible loss”.

The organisation Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) was set up in 1995 to raise awareness of Sudden Death Syndrome.  It wants to introduce a national screening programme using an ECG – a painless test that records the heart’s electrical activity – which can highlight problems and further tests can then be carried out to determine an exact diagnosis.

Alison Cox, founder and chief executive of CRY, said: “Our conservative estimate is that eight young people die from SDS every week.  The problem is that the deaths go down as asthma, unascertained epilepsy, drownings or natural causes.

“SDS is a silent killer.  The person can be dead within 20 seconds.  We had one case where there was a child who died as she was handing a cup of tea to one of her parents.

“The deaths are absolutely catastrophic for the family.  They have no understanding of what has happened.  They are left wondering how is it possible for a fit and healthy young person to be dead so quickly.

“The death of a much-loved adult is horrendous – but when it’s a young person who has their life ahead of them it is horrific.”

The charity is now calling on the government to introduce a national screening programme and a bill enabling that to happen is currently going through Parliament and will have its second reading on March 12.

CASE STUDY: PETER JORDAN, 25

Peter Jordan was a fit and healthy 25-year-old who enjoyed life when he died suddenly and without warning.

It was November 15 1998 and his younger sister Costandina Shackleton says his death still haunts her today.

Peter; a pastry chef, was asleep in bed when his fiancé noticed he wasn’t breathing.  She called an ambulance and despite frantic attempts to resuscitate him he died.

Account director, Constandina, 28, from Wilmslow, was close to her big brother.  They spoke daily on the telephone at 4.10 pm.  She still thinks about him at that time every day and misses those phone calls.

His cause of death was given as restrictive cardiomyopathy.  It is characterised by increased stiffness of the heart muscle, usually due to scar tissue, which prevents adequate filling of the chambers of the heart.

There were no warning signs and the suddenness of death has had a profound effect on Constandina.  She said: “If I had a headache I would think I was going to die because of what happened to Peter.

“The way he died, I couldn’t understand it.  I wasn’t prepared for it.  The reason why it happened is so devastating.

“There is a void and at first I couldn’t explain or make any sense of it.  He was a normal 25-year-old with his life in front of him.”

She discovered CRY and learned about the symptoms that led to Peter’s death, becoming a divisional representative for the organisation.