A 21-YEAR-OLD university student died after his heart was attacked by his own immune system.

An inquest heard how doctors were baffled by Michael Grant's condition for over 14 years.

And it was only after his death that pathologist Dr Richard Prescott discovered the truth of the enemy within which had been "nibbling" at his heart muscles.

The inquest was told that Michael started to suffer blackouts when he was just seven years old.

At first doctors diagnosed epilepsy but after this was ruled out various heart related diseases were suspected but none were ever confirmed.

Michael's mother, Doreen Grant, of Bolton Road, Darwen, told how he had visited hospitals and consultants all over the north of England in a bid to determine exactly what was behind the blackouts which were caused by irregular heart beats.

But Dr Prescott revealed it would have been virtually impossible to diagnose the congestive cardio myopathy which killed Michael while he was still alive.

He said Michael had probably suffered a viral infection when he was young and his auto-immune system would have established lymphosytes to fight the virus.

"When the virus has gone it would appear they have started to attack the heart muscle which could have been displaying similar characteristics to the viral infection," said Dr Prescott.

"My theory is that the heart was being damaged by his own lymphosytes. They were nibbling at his heart muscles and this led to the cardiac arrhythmias which caused him to collapse. Unfortunately, following the latest collapse his heart simply did not restart."

Dr Prescott said he had taken 20 tissue samples from the heart and had found traces of inflammatory cells on just three of them.

"It would have been virtually impossible to detect while he was still alive," said Dr Prescott. Speaking after the inquest, Mrs Grant said she hoped the medical knowledge gained as a result of Michael's death in May might help someone else in a similar situation.

She told how Michael had graduated from the University of Central Lancashire with a degree in psychology and planned to return to university in September to do a law degree.

"Despite his problems he was a normal happy young man who had a lot of friends," said Mrs Grant, who found her son collapsed behind the door of their home when she returned early from a weekend in the Lake District because he wasn't answering the phone.

"Somehow I knew there was something wrong. Nothing can bring Michael back and I just hope that something out of this can help even one family avoid the heartache we have gone through. We lived with Michael's problem for 14 years without knowing exactly what was wrong with him and I suppose we just expected everything to carry on. It was such a shock to find him dead," she added.

The medical cause of death was given as cardiac arrhythmia caused by congestive cardiac myopathy and coroner Michael Singleton recorded a verdict of natural causes.