As the average age of competitors in endurance sports rises, a spate of deaths during races or intense workouts highlights the risks of excessive strain on the heart through vigorous exercise in middle age.The ways in which over exercise can hurt a middle aged heart apparently includes just physical wear and tear:
Among the recent casualties: American Michael McClintock, senior managing director of Macquarie Group Ltd and a triathlete, who died at age 55 of cardiac arrest earlier this month after training.
The men's 40-to-60-year age bracket - often referred to as middle aged men in Lycra, or Mamils - now holds 32 per cent of the membership in USA Triathlon, the sport's official governing body in the US.
More fitness conscious than previous generations, their numbers in competitive races are swelling, along with their risk of cardiac arrest. Triathlons, the most robust of endurance races requiring swimming, biking and running, are also believed to be the most risky.
Intense exercise for periods longer than one to two hours can cause over-stretching and tiny tears of the heart's tissue, says James O'Keefe, a sports cardiologist and head of preventative cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri.
This type of repeated injury over years can cause irregular heart rhythms, increased inflammation, scarring and stiffening of the arteries, he says.
Athletic over-achievers tend to think that “more is better,” though when it comes to health, “moderation is almost always best,” O'Keefe says.
This part I find encouraging for my present lifestyle (heh):
“If anyone is going to have a cardiac event they're far more likely to have one during exercise,” says Davison. A person is seven times more likely to have a heart incident while exercising than at rest, he says, citing a 1984 New England Journal of Medicine study.
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