Here’s What Killed Hulk Hogan
Image by Paul Kane/Getty Images
Hulk Hogan, one of the most famed professional wrestlers of all time, has passed away at the age of 71 in his home near Tampa, Florida.
In a statement posted to Facebook, local law enforcement announced that “personnel responded to a medical call at 9:51 am today,” revealing that the “nature of the call was for a cardiac arrest.”
Hogan was pronounced dead after being taken to the nearby Morton Plant Hospital. Police said there was no suspicious activity related to his death.
While we can only speculate about the exact causes that led up to the wrestler’s heart attack, Hogan has a long history of steroid abuse and grueling physical injuries throughout his career, which took a toll on his health.
Last year, Hogan told YouTuber Logan Paul that he “had like 25 surgeries in the last ten years.”
“Ten back surgeries, both knees and both hips replaced, shoulders — everything,” he added.
Diet was also likely a factor. Hogan championed a fast food-inflected American aesthetic, and sold a line of branded cheeseburgers between 2007 and 2011.
He also joins a long number of other professional wrestlers who died at a relatively young age. Rowdy Roddy Piper, who had a long rivalry with Hogan, died at the age of 61 of a heart attack in 2015. Michael “Hawk” Michael Hegstrand and Joe “Animal” Laurinaitis, who were prominent figures in the 1980s, also both died of heart attacks.
As with Hogan, the many stories of taking performance-enhancing drugs have likely contributed to all those cases of fatal heart disease. In the case against WWE co-founder Vince McMahon, who was accused of providing illegal steroids to wrestlers, Hogan testified that he had taken anabolic steroids, pointing out that steroid use “was fairly common” among WWF wrestlers in the 1980s.
Research has shown that the abuse of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS), which have medical uses such as growth stimulation and aiding in weight gain following trauma or surgery, is correlated with higher cardiovascular risks, including increased risk of acute myocardial infarction, the technical term for a heart attack, as well as arrhythmias and heart failure.
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