... But the newest Vasaloppet-related study, published in June in The European Heart Journal, is worrisome. For it, researchers from Uppsala University and other institutions examined the health records of almost 53,000 race participants and found that the more races that someone had completed between 1989 and 1999 or the faster they had finished, the more likely they were to require hospitalization in the next 10 years for an abnormal heart beat, a condition known as arrhythmia.
For some time, exercise scientists, as well as a few highly committed exercisers and their spouses, have wondered if there might be an upper limit to the amount of exertion that is healthy, especially for the human heart. While the evidence is overwhelming that exercise improves heart health in most people and reduces the risk of developing or dying of heart disease, there have been intimations that people can do too much. A 2011 study of male, lifelong, competitive endurance athletes aged 50 or older, for instance, found that they had more fibrosis — meaning scarring — in their heart muscle than men of the same age who were active but not competitive athletes.
Now the latest Vasaloppet study and a separate study of rats running the equivalent of several rodent marathons that was published this month in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology are likely to further the debate about possible upper limits to safe exercise.
Women's health experts have known the hazards of too much exercise for years, given the increased incidence of menstrual disturbances in marathon runners. And remember that Jim Fixx, the author of The Complete Book of Running, died of a massive heart attack after his daily run.
So by all means exercise, but listen to your body. It may be trying to tell you something.
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