Older endurance athletes face sky high A Fib risk (building, bike, fast)

[Arktikos]

http://www.mdedge.com/ecardiologynew...ws%20headlines

"..Dr. Estes’ presentation struck a responsive chord with the audience. Numerous cardiologists rose to chime in that they, too, have encountered new-onset AF in middle-aged patients, friends, and medical colleagues who are serious cyclists, marathoners, and devotees of other forms of high-intensity endurance exercise to the tune of 10-20 hours per weekly..."

[ogre]

Maybe there is something to this. Maybe a better regimen than long-endurance exercise of fairly high intensity would be more moderate endurance exercise, or (best of all, I suspect) a combination of light to moderate endurance activity and bursts of higher intensity, including strength workouts as part of the high-intensity moments.

That's possible, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the kind of workout this study indicates could be a problem. A key question is how long these people have been exercising, and how long they've spent working up to this intensity.

Maybe running a fast marathon, or something of similar difficulty, is more than most human bodies can handle, but the problem also could be that people take on serious endurance challenges before they're really in shape for it. It could take years of gradually building up your conditioning before your body is truly ready to take on the most demanding endurance challenges. Perhaps people who run into trouble encounter problems because they've rushed this timetable.

It would be difficult to determine the need for such gradual long-term increases in conditioning. That would require a long-term study, and it's difficult to run an experiment where you keep track of the subjects for several years. Still, before concluding that highly demanding endurance activity is inherently bad for the heart, we'd need to have some idea of the effects in people who had gradually worked up to these demands over a number of years.

[locolobo13]

Curious. I'd like to see the actual graph of the J-curve mentioned. At least the data is observational not a survey.

Also the danger is for men only. That's curious too. At least he is willing to tell us at what level the curve shifts.

“As you get into the high-intensity/high-endurance end of the spectrum – typically more than 5 hours per week at greater than 80% of peak heart rate – the risk of A-fib increases up to 10-fold,” according to Dr. Estes.

But we are all different. YMMV. Not sure it applies to me. Typically I bike 7-10 hrs / week. But not at >80% of my peak heart rate. I'll worry about it when I see some kind of symptom that I'm over training.

[fallstaff]

This has been known for a long time but seldom discussed. Back in 2000 Bill Bradley the basketball player was running for the democratic party nomination. He admitted he had been diagnosed with A-Fib. The ensuing wave of news stories mentioned that it was "an epidemic" among older basketball players and others who engage in high endurance, high heart rate activities

Then it promptly went into the memory hole and they continued telling us that more exercises was better, aerobics of any kind are always good, we all need to exercise intensely 5 hours a week... eggs cause heart attacks but it's safe to eat lipitor every day for 30 or 40 yrs

[NorthernGator]

Hi Blind Cleric,
There are good and bad, of everything. Before I stopped doing anything I'd check in with a cardiologist that has blogged or written about athlete's heart.
NG

Originally Posted by Blind Cleric

http://www.mdedge.com/ecardiologynew...ws%20headlines

"..Dr. Estes’ presentation struck a responsive chord with the audience. Numerous cardiologists rose to chime in that they, too, have encountered new-onset AF in middle-aged patients, friends, and medical colleagues who are serious cyclists, marathoners, and devotees of other forms of high-intensity endurance exercise to the tune of 10-20 hours per weekly..."

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by fallstaff

This has been known for a long time but seldom discussed. Back in 2000 Bill Bradley the basketball player was running for the democratic party nomination. He admitted he had been diagnosed with A-Fib. The ensuing wave of news stories mentioned that it was "an epidemic" among older basketball players and others who engage in high endurance, high heart rate activities..

OK, but there is a distinction to be made here, because this study is discussing older athletes currently working their hearts long and hard. Not a likely scenario for Bradley, or a retired professional athlete in general. Most of their bodies are too worn out anymore to pursue endurance activities in retirement.