Curb Your Enthusiasm

The pursuit of ultimate fitness my damage your heart. From today's Telegraph, we learn about some American research:

Extreme exercise such as marathons may permanently damage the heart and trigger rhythm abnormalities, warn researchers.

They say the safe ‘upper limit’ for heart health is a maximum of an hour a day - after which there is little benefit to the individual.

A review of research evidence by US physicians says intensive training schedules and extreme endurance competitions can cause long-term harm to people’s hearts.

...

Dr O’Keefe and colleagues said research suggests that extreme endurance training can cause transient structural cardiovascular changes and elevations of cardiac biomarkers, all of which return to normal within one week.

But for some individuals, over months and years of repetitive injury, this process can lead to the development of patchy scarring of certain areas of the heart, and abnormal heart rhythms.

In one study, approximately 12 per cent of apparently healthy marathon runners showed evidence for patchy myocardial scarring, and the coronary heart disease event rate during a two-year follow up was significantly higher in marathon runners than in runners not doing marathons.

A year ago the NY Times told us about research from the UK with a similar result:

Recently, researchers in Britain set out to study the heart health of a group of dauntingly fit older athletes. Uninterested in sluggards, the scientists recruited only men who had been part of a British national or Olympic team in distance running or rowing, as well as members of the extremely selective 100 Marathon club, which admits runners who, as you might have guessed, have completed at least a hundred marathons.

All of the men had trained and competed throughout their adult lives and continued to work out strenuously. Twelve were age 50 or older, with the oldest age 67; another 17 were relative striplings, ages 26 to 40. The scientists also gathered a group of 20 healthy men over 50, none of them endurance athletes, for comparison. The different groups underwent a new type of magnetic resonance imaging of their hearts that identifies very early signs of fibrosis, or scarring, within the heart muscle. Fibrosis, if it becomes severe, can lead to stiffening or thickening of portions of the heart, which can contribute to irregular heart function and, eventually, heart failure.

The results, published online a few weeks ago in The Journal of Applied Physiology, were rather disquieting. None of the younger athletes or the older nonathletes had fibrosis in their hearts. But half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring. The affected men were, in each case, those who’d trained the longest and hardest. Spending more years exercising strenuously or completing more marathon or ultramarathon races was, in this study, associated with a greater likelihood of heart damage.

So if you do too many Iron Man and short course Tin Man competitions, eventually you may need a new heart. Cool - say 'hi' to Dorothy and the wizard.

 

Comments

[xbradtc]

**commenting from the safety of my couch**

[matt]

Jim Fixx please call your office....

[Clarice]

Fat's okay and so is salt, a big cheer from the layabouts!

[Thomas Collins]

This is useful info for a natural couch potato, or even a moderate exerciser, who thinks taking up an extreme regimen will extend lifespan. But how many hard core marathoners or triathletes or other hard core athletes do so to extend life? I suspect most of them do so because that's what they like to do.

[xbradtc]

Fat's okay and so is salt, a big cheer from the layabouts!

So bacon really IS the perfect food?

[NK]

Fat's okay and so is salt, a big cheer from the layabouts!
So bacon really IS the perfect food?
Posted by: xbradtc | June 05, 2012 at 04:27 PM

Absolutely correct....

[centralcal]

Rush Limbaugh: As you people know, I play it safe. Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down on the sofa, on the floor, on my back, until the feeling goes away.

[AliceH]

"Trommel Wahnsinn" LOL! Another winner, Frau.

[MarkO]

"Fixx was an overweight smoker before he took up running. His blood cholesterol levels were elevated. He had also experienced several warning symptoms, which he chose to ignore and had refused the option of undergoing an exercise stress test

As well, Fixx's father had died of a heart attack at the age of 43. Fixx was 52 when he dropped dead of a heart attack while on a seven-kilometre run in July 1984.

An autopsy showed Fixx had severe coronary artery disease. One artery was 95 per cent blocked, a second was 80 per cent blocked and a third was 50 per cent blocked."

I ran about 5 miles a day. Finally, my hip gave out. I wouldn't trade the runs for anything even if they now kill me.

[Ignatz]

--I ran about 5 miles a day. Finally, my hip gave out. I wouldn't trade the runs for anything even if they now kill me.--

I used to run about 8 miles a day until one of my discs gave out.
I would gladly trade all that running for the thirty years of sporadic misery that ensued, until it sort of spontaneously healed itself a few years back.

[Jane]

So bacon really IS the perfect food?

That was established a while ago. Too bad it costs $8.00 a lb.

[Rob Crawford]

Bacon is God's candy.

[Jack is Back (Again)!]

I have been eating Turkey Bacon now for about 6 months and it is really good plus you don't get the same levels of fat. Very lean, very smoky. Nothing fancy or boutique but just old Oscar Meyer at Publix.

OT: According to Drudge siren alert it looks like a 5 pt. margin same as 2 years ago according to exit polls. Sanity returns to America, one brain cell at a time.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

--I ran about 5 miles a day. Finally, my hip gave out. I wouldn't trade the runs for anything even if they now kill me.--

I used to run about 8 miles a day until one of my discs gave out.

Is anyone seeing a regularity here?

[Chubby]

acquaintance of mine with a brain tumor was expected by all to pre-decease her medical physician/fitness freak husband. Lo and behold, one day after a game of squash, he died of a heart attack in the shower, predeseasing her by many years.

Terrible thing to say, but I think his death gave her some relief. She had lots and lots of money and he detested her spending any of it, in fact was a miserable skinflint.

[Rob Crawford]

Well, Charlie, add my brother who blew out both knees running track in high school and I think the pattern's well-established.

[Chubby]

another acquaintance of mine, a hefty guy, only half jokingly claims that he is a lot healthier than non hefty guys because even when he goes for a short walk he's getting a better workout because of the extra weight he carries. He says that makes him stronger than they are, because everything he does is a workout with weights :)

[AliceH]

After what seemed a decade of division-wide 80hr work weeks, we smokers used to joke that we were the only people in the office who actually got outside for fresh air and sunshine during the week. Heh.

[A long time ago.]

I asked a doctor one time what would happen when a life of exercise ensuing in poor knees would get you hammered by the Medicare police for 'poor lifestyle choices' and placed lower in the line for knee replacement. He replied that the question had been studied and that the exercise benefits exceeded the damaged knees costs.
=================

[Stephanie]

He replied that the question had been studied and that the exercise benefits exceeded the damaged knees costs.

Until they redetermine they don't.

[Smokers yap, ya know.]

Also many years ago, I used to start the morning with coffee and a cigarette with members of other departments in a handy lounge by one of the departments. By ten after the hour, I was up to speed on the whole operation. When indoor smoking was banned, I no longer had such easy access to such intelligence.
=================

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Fox just called it for Walker.

[justin bieber shoes]

Experts predict that the coastline of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii will see some pretty nasty debris wash ashore; California will have some, but less, as most of it will be caught in a current that will carry it to the pacific islands.