Excess exercise 'hurts the heart'

campagone

Did anyone else see this in the Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... tists.html
I had an attack of Atrial Fibrillation a few months ago and got hospitalised with it. Though tests haven't shown anything wrong, they did show a slight thickening of the wall of the heart, just what they expect with someone who does a lot of endurance sport, a typical athletes heart, which can cause abnormal rythms. So I suppose there may be something in this story but I don't know of any pro cyclists with heart problems or even retired ones having problems further on in life.

jehannum5

mmm... just been debating this point with a colleague. There is some research at the moment that suggests that endurance athletes have a higher preponderence towards developing Atrial Fibrillation (AF) at a later age. This should not be confused with hypertrophy resulting from increasing exercise or cardiomegaly (different kettle of fish by degree). It should not be confused with long QT syndrome (sudden death in young athletes).
I would not immediately relate your risk to those in the study. More research needs to be conducted in order to qualify the type of exercise, duration, intensity and other factors. It doesn't mean that because you (I'm assuming this) are a recreational rider or amateur cyclist that you are the same as the cohort studied.
The next point is 'so what' - if you live to 80 you have a very high chance of developing AF anyway.. so would you chose to limit your lifestyle now to (possibly - not proven) lower your risk of AF at 60? Moreover, not exercising now may place you at more risk of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes etc.
So its not cut and dry and by the way AF may be drug controlled anyway; and, if not, its impact may be mitigated by medication. Not a nice disease to get but not as bad as not cycling for the rest of your young life (in my judgement).

Sussed out

The daily mail chats a whole load of bullshit.
If you showed that to Olympic athletes I don't think they'd say 'yeah, I'd better just stick to an hour a day'
Sometimes I do think scientists don't have anything better to do. Researching a cure for cancer is obviously just too hard!

campagone

Got to say I agree with you both. It seems like a lot of scaremongering, if it were right everyone would be suffering the same and they'd have sussed it out ages ago and told everyone to limmit their excersise. My AF so far has only been a one off, and though I have medication, it's only to correct it should I need it, I dont take it every day (infact I haven't taken it at all) so unless it starts happening more often I'm not overly worried and continue to ride my bike regularly.

cougie

Isnt the key word 'excess' ?

Excess anything probably isnt a good idea - especially excess idleness.

I'd wager that 99.99% of us do nowhere near a dangerous level of exercise - so I'm not going to worry.

This is useful - http://hellokinsella.posterous.com/the- ... give-you-c

Peddle Up!

cougie wrote:

Isnt the key word 'excess' ?

Excess anything probably isnt a good idea - especially excess idleness.

I'd wager that 99.99% of us do nowhere near a dangerous level of exercise - so I'm not going to worry.

This is useful - http://hellokinsella.posterous.com/the- ... give-you-c

Quite. I'm sure we've all injured muscles and joints through excess effort and I don't see why the heart should be any different.

As to using the Daily Fail as a source of information on anything. :roll:

shockedsoshocked

Unless you've got some weird eating disorder whereby your heart and cardiovascular system are already under severe strain I doubt whatever exercise you do can ever be "excessive". I have read (but don't know for certain) that scarring on the heart can be caused by athletes training through illness (colds/flu etc), not necessarily through exercise alone.

Exercising to the extreme (like pro athletes) are at risk of issues if they suddenly stopped exercising completely however.

okgo

Ffs stop reading the Mail.

t.m.h.n.e.t

Give it a month or two. Eating will be the new exercising.

Thanks DM!

Headhuunter

To be fair to the DM they appear to simply be reporting the findings of some doctors in the US... It doesn't go into detail as to how their research was carried out, however without knowing more behind this story I think it's hard to discard it as general scaremongering. It sounds pretty logical to me that if you do a lot of endurance exercise your heart is going to be under strain, just as if you go to the gym to do bench presses again and again, your pectorals will be under pressure. The heart is just another muscle after all with some ability to heal itself but how far can it be pushed?

shockedsoshocked

The heart isn't quite like other muscles though, if anything your skeletal muscle will give out long before your heart gets to a point it would be considered strained.

johnnyc71

jehannum5 wrote:

and by the way AF may be drug controlled anyway; and, if not, its impact may be mitigated by medication.

Regarding drug control - this is true, it's also the case that commonly prescribed medication may actually cause AF to worsen.

I've been TT'ing with AF with no real problems, but now that I'm on an anti arrthymia medication called amiodarone - medication controlled cardioversion isn't cycle friendly - in fact it poses many problems, i.e. you become photosensitive, which is s**t for cycling. At worst it can cause pulminory fibrosis - not good for those with a fondness for life.

P_Tucker

johnnyc71 wrote:

in fact it poses many problems, i.e. you become photosensitive, which is s**t for cycling.

Sounds awful. The only reason I race is for the off chance the photographer catches me looking relaxed and everyone else looking like they're trying really hard. Without that I'd end up resorting to golf.

johnnyc71

Factor 50 and leave the house really early at 6am ish on the weekend rides. I'd love to try looking really relaxed for TT photos, but more often than not, I don't even notice the photographer.

Bozman

I had a 24hr stay in a cardiac ward after an AF attack roughly 2 years ago, i'd had minor palpitations before and i still get the odd one now.
The cardiologist gave me the all clear and told me not to worry about it, "it might never happen again and don't worry about the palpitations, with a low RHR you're going to feel minor palpitations that other people don't".
I asked about my low RHR and he said that i had an athletic heart, clear off and enjoy your life.

Bordersroadie

campagone wrote:

Did anyone else see this in the Mail.

This is as much as I needed to read before not clicking the link and not reading anything further.

Thanks and goodnight.

Axel_Knutt

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2638655

ju5t1n

My mate Andy reckons that every human heart only has a finite number of beats in it and by cycling all the time I’m using them up quicker. He smokes and drinks like I fish so I think I’ll have the last laugh on that one.

Herbsman

ju5t1n wrote:

My mate Andy reckons that every human heart only has a finite number of beats in it and by cycling all the time I’m using them up quicker. He smokes and drinks like I fish so I think I’ll have the last laugh on that one.

Finite number of beats, what a load of bwollocks... Tell him.

jgsi

Essential
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefo ... ten-block/

neeb

Herbsman wrote:

ju5t1n wrote:

My mate Andy reckons that every human heart only has a finite number of beats in it and by cycling all the time I’m using them up quicker. He smokes and drinks like I fish so I think I’ll have the last laugh on that one.

Finite number of beats, what a load of bwollocks... Tell him.

Not only is it bollocks, but you can enjoy seeing his reaction when you point out that actually he is "using up his beats" faster than you are...

Think about it - while you are exercising your HR is maybe three times its resting rate, but you are only exercising for maybe 10 - 15 hours a week, which is only about 5-7% the time. All the rest of the time, your resting HR is probably about 65% of what his is... If you count the beats, he is getting through his a lot quicker!

smidsy

The 'set amount of heart beats' thing does exist (to some extent) in the animal world but studies have shown that this does not hold true for humans.

Your friend sounds like a bit of an animal so maybe HE is the one at risk :-)

Besides even if it was true the fact that you excercise means that your heart becomes more efficient and you then use less beats when not excercising so ultimately you still win.