Sunday, 22 April 2012

Running-marathons-permanently-damages-heart

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2071018/Running-marathons-permanently-damage-heart.html

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Long-Distance Running Damages Your Heart

Do you pride yourself on running mile upon mile, week after week? Do you love the challenge and adrenaline rush that comes from completing a marathon?

Let me preface the information that follows by saying this: as a former sub 3-hour marathon runner myself, I understand the drive that pushes many athletes and weekend warriors to compete in these strenuous events. But now that I have examined the research, I firmly believe doing so may put your heart at risk. For example, two recent studies showed:

Heart damage after lifelong cardio: In a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology,v researchers recruited a group of extremely fit older men. All of them were members of the 100 Marathon club, meaning athletes who had completed a minimum of 100 marathons. If running marathons provided cardiovascular benefit this would certainly be the group you would want to seriously examine. So what did they find?
Half of the older lifelong athletes showed some heart muscle scarring as a result, and they were specifically the men who had trained the longest and hardest.

Heart scarring after elite cardio training: An animal study published in the journal Circulationvi was designed to mimic the strenuous daily exercise load of serious marathoners over the course of 10 years. All the rats had normal, healthy hearts at the outset of the study, but by the end most of them had developed "diffuse scarring and some structural changes, similar to the changes seen in the human endurance athletes."