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Marathon Running and Coronary Damage
publication date: Apr 30, 2010
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author/source: Art
I have been warning of the dangers and, may I say, idiocy of running marathons for a long time now. The body count continues to pile up and new pathways of damage are being discovered now that the research is looking into the consequences of this "exercise". It has taken some time to overcome the prevailing mind-set that long-distance running is unhealthful for reasons that I cannot fathom. As with all forms of exercise, it is a matter of degree---some is healthful, a lot is injurious. Even with that said though, long distance running is not really heathful. The benefits of running distances can easily be obtained with a nice walk interspersed with some playful sprints.
One of our readers, B.W., posted a link on our Member Forum to a new study published in HeartWire of the effects of long-term marathon running and calcification of the heart and coronary arteries. The doctors who did the study are runners and say that the results of their study are counter-intuitive, meaning, I would guess, that it is contrary to a runner's world view. But, it is hardly counter-intuitive when you know the many harmful consequences of marathon running and training. For a look at some of them, see my old post Top Ten Reasons Not to Run Marathons. To top it off, the "control" group with whom the runners were compared had been imaged for clinical reasons: "The researchers noted that the asymptomatic control group included patients undergoing CTA for clinical reasons, such as risk factors for abnormal or inconclusive stress testing, meaning that the differences between the groups would likely be even larger in the general population." To put it directly, the runners were, on the whole, worse off than the patients.
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