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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Is Running Good For The Heart? Running is believed to be among the best aerobic exercises for physical conditioning of the heart and lungs. It helps ensure that the blood and oxygen can flow effectively throughout the body, thus lowering the risk of heart attack. A growing body of evidence also showed running can reduce the risk or delay the onset of cardiovascular disease, dementia, cancer, depression and other diseases. In general, running can be in the form of jogging (running at slow pace) or long distance running like marathon or even ultramarathon. An ultramarathon is any sporting event that involves running and walking longer than the traditional marathon length of 42.195 kilometers (or 26.219 miles). More and more people have tried to push their physical limits by participating in marathon and even ultramarathon. There are, however, an increasing number of runners who were apparently healthy died of heart attack during various long-distance running events. In fact, about 14 percent of athlete deaths are linked to heart problems. One of the common myths among people is that they should be free from heart disease since they can exercise without symptoms. Nevertheless, a study published in 1970 in journal ‘Heart’ revealed that about one-third of patients who had an acute heart attack did not have preceding chest pain. In 2003, a study on women reported in journal ‘Circulation’ that only about 30 percent had preceding chest pain in the month before the acute heart attack.
During a heart attack, the most common symptoms were shortness of breath (58 percent), weakness (55 percent), and fatigue (43 percent). Chest pain was absent in 43 percent of the women during the acute heart attack. Hence, it is not uncommon that some patients who might have severe blockage of the heart arteries and even heart attacks, and yet experience no chest pain. A paper presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2010 in Montreal pointed out that regular exercise reduces cardiovascular risk by a factor of 2 or 3, but extended vigorous exercise performed during a marathon raises cardiac risk by 7-fold! This shows that in the case of exercise, more is not necessarily better. After reviewing about 50 studies published between 1991 and 2012 on the impact of extreme endurance exercise on the heart, Mayo Clinic released their findings in 2012. They argued that extreme endurance exercises, like marathons, ultramarathons, triathlons and extremely long distance bicycle races, could cause transient volume overload of the upper and right lower heart (ventricle) chambers, with transient reduction in right ventricular pump function and evidence of heart damage on blood testing. These phenomena would return to normal within 1 week. But in some individuals, repeated physical strain on the heart might lead to patchy scarring of the heart. This could raise the risk of abnormal heart rhythms, including a 5-fold increase in atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm that is associated with an increased stroke risk. About 12 percent of healthy marathoners had evidence of patchy scarring of the heart muscle, according to one study. Moreover, the incidence of coronary heart disease was significantly higher in marathon runners during a 2-year follow-up. As stated before, heart disease can have no symptoms and heart attack can even occur without any chest pain. So, a person who can run a marathon without symptoms does not mean that there is no underlying heart disease. One should not forget that chronic repetitive endurance exercise could damage the heart and sometimes lead to sudden death. It is important for people who have chronic endurance exercise to seek advice of their doctors. Remember this, exercise alone does not prevent heart disease. Favorable results could be achieved only when exercise is combined with dietary measures as this will result in lowering of cholesterol. Moreover, running a marathon or an ultramarathon does not have a benefit that is far better than a moderate exercise of 30 to 60 minutes. In fact, the returns from investing in excessive endurance exercise is only associated with diminishing returns.
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