Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspected

For those questions and discussions on the McDougall program that don’t seem to fit in any other forum.

Moderators: JeffN, f1jim, John McDougall, carolve, Heather McDougall

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby eXtremE » Tue Apr 15, 2014 7:02 am

Starchmonger wrote:Marathoners often don't live extraordinary long lives just because of the chance of cardiac emergencies. Exercise is an interesting thing since it's so healthy but it's quite easy to over-do.

Marathon runners aside, look at Professional wrestlers and NFL players, both highly trained categories of male athletes with absolutely abysmal records of long-term health.

Do a little jogging, strenuous walking, and work your muscles a bit, but exercise shouldn't rule your life - and the evidence is too much can and does hurt you.

Be healthy,
Starchmonger
Yep, this is the attitude I have now and I was once as hardcore as they come when he came to exercise.
On 7/8/2013, I decided to change my diet to a "mostly" WFPB diet. I have always been somewhat lean and muscular due to being a lifelong exerciser. Change in diet due to feeling crummy all the time despite a healthy outward appearance. Image
User avatar
eXtremE
 
Posts: 3525
Joined: Fri Aug 02, 2013 5:05 am

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby vgpedlr » Tue Apr 15, 2014 10:49 am

As endurance sports continue to get more popular, I suspect we will see more of this. The doctors quoted in the article summed it up well: it doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. It seems that the excitement and intensity of race day can bring otherwise unknown cardiac risks into the open.

We don't know much about the participants other than age. Were they healthy? Did they eat SAD? How fit we're they? It wasn't the heat, temps from the 50s to 70s are pretty mild. It wasn't even a full marathon, it was a half and they collapsed around mile 10. McDougll like to bring up the example of skinny endurance athletes at races. That may have been true 20 yrs ago, but not anymore. Go to any race and you will see all sorts of body shapes, many overweight. It seems to me that a lot of folks, myself included on occasion, push ourselves through force of will to complete some athletic challenge. Maybe not as healthy as we would like to believe.

Some of this has been discussed on previous threads, but here is an interesting blog post by a British MD and professional triathlete:
http://www.sportiedoc.com/blog/2013/2/3/is-endurance-sport-damaging-our-hearts
User avatar
vgpedlr
 
Posts: 4502
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:17 pm
Location: NorCal

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby ChrisB » Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:27 am

Starchmonger wrote:Marathon runners aside, look at Professional wrestlers and NFL players, both highly trained categories of male athletes with absolutely abysmal records of long-term health.

Do a little jogging, strenuous walking, and work your muscles a bit, but exercise shouldn't rule your life - and the evidence is too much can and does hurt you.


comparing marathon runners with nfl players and professional wrestlers is misleading. pro wrestling and the nfl has a long history of drug abuse (performance enhancers like steroids) and the repetitive contact not only impacts ex-players' brains but also the bodies. if you look at older marathon runners, many are still running and i cannot think of one who is debilitated from their running career.

the evidence is mixed about the harm from endurance sports and the risk is far less than many other activities we do on a regular basis such as driving.

again, if this was a food based article we would all be saying "people like to hear good news about their bad habits."
ChrisB
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:30 am

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby patty » Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:54 am

ChrisB wrote:
Starchmonger wrote:Marathon runners aside, look at Professional wrestlers and NFL players, both highly trained categories of male athletes with absolutely abysmal records of long-term health.

Do a little jogging, strenuous walking, and work your muscles a bit, but exercise shouldn't rule your life - and the evidence is too much can and does hurt you.


comparing marathon runners with nfl players and professional wrestlers is misleading. pro wrestling and the nfl has a long history of drug abuse (performance enhancers like steroids) and the repetitive contact not only impacts ex-players' brains but also the bodies. if you look at older marathon runners, many are still running and i cannot think of one who is debilitated from their running career.

the evidence is mixed about the harm from endurance sports and the risk is far less than many other activities we do on a regular basis such as driving.

again, if this was a food based article we would all be saying "people like to hear good news about their bad habits."


Excellent post. I totally agree:)

Aloha, patty
patty
 
Posts: 6977
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 11:46 am

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby waingapu » Tue Apr 15, 2014 12:09 pm

EvanG wrote:Seriously, I showed the equations that I used. If you think that approach was wrong you should mention it. If you are just saying that I ran the numbers through a calculator incorrectly, you should try again. I don't know how you got to your values, because you didn't show anythin.


NO, your numbers are entirely wrong

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The article said that in a 2012 study, 11 million people participated in marathons or half marathons. Of these 59 had heart attacks. Assuming each on takes 3 hrs to complete the race, that is 59/11/3 = 1.8 heart attacks / million people / hr.

Every year about 720,000 Americans have heart attacks. This is out of about 320 million people. Let's assume there are about 225 million people over age 20. That is 225 * 365 * 24 = 1,971,000 million person hours. So 720,000 heart attacks / 1,971,000 million person hrs = 0.37 heart attacks / million person hrs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your problems as follows. Take your 11 million people running the races, with each taking your 3 hours to run.
That is 33,000,000 million hours. Divide that by the 59 heart attacks and you get .55 heart attacks per million people hours

So you have .55 or .56 vs your answer of 1.8

Next you have 225 million x 365 x 24, or 1,971,000 million person hours divided by 720,000 heart attacks.
Which gives you 2.73 heart attacks per million person hours, not 0.37

For unknown reasons you are dividing the wrong number by the other number,... exactly backwards.

I'm sure, upon reflection, you can see where you went wrong.
waingapu
 
Posts: 377
Joined: Mon Jun 10, 2013 4:14 pm

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby baardmk » Tue Apr 15, 2014 12:39 pm

I'm well educated within maths and natural science. I'm fallible as anyone, but I don't see anything wrong with EvanG's calculations as a first order estimate.

I can tolerate misspellings of people speaking their first language, but math trolling... you have to draw the line some place.
User avatar
baardmk
 
Posts: 1331
Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2012 9:53 pm
Location: Norway

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby waingapu » Tue Apr 15, 2014 1:10 pm

baardmk wrote:I'm well educated within maths and natural science. I'm fallible as anyone, but I don't see anything wrong with EvanG's calculations as a first order estimate.

I can tolerate misspellings of people speaking their first language, but math trolling... you have to draw the line some place.


Please, that is why I added the :-) so as to not be too serious.

Now, I like numbers... and you are well educated in math and science. Perhaps....perhaps I am wrong, but please tell me where I have gone wrong and EvanG is correct.

--- Every year about 720,000 Americans have heart attacks. This is out of about 320 million people. Let's assume there are about 225 million people over age 20. That is 225 * 365 * 24 = 1,971,000 million person hours. So 720,000 heart attacks / 1,971,000 million person hrs = 0.37 heart attacks / million person hrs.

----Then I say ---you have 225 million x 365 x 24, or 1,971,000 million person hours divided by 720,000 heart attacks.
Which gives you 2.73 heart attacks per million person hours, not 0.37

0.37 vs 2.73 Those are wildly different answers

We are looking for the number of heart attacks per million person hours.

So you take the total hours 225 million people times 365 days times 24 hours (1,971,000 million person hours)
EvanG and I both agree on that step and those numbers.

So what do you do with that number? You divide it by the number of heart attacks to get the hours per heart attack.

You take the 1,971,000 million person hours and divide by the 720,000 heart attacks.
That is the number of heart attacks per million person hours in the general public

The answer is 2.73... not 0.37

The same problem was in the other equation which was being done for the marathon and half marathon runners
0.55 or 0.56 was the answer, not 1.8

Now do you see the problem more clearly?

BTW, we are not talking about mere spelling or punctuation.
Math is the basis of all the studies and such that we use to decide which course of eating is the best for our health.
The math is the entire story, so we don't want to casually throw facts around if they aren't correct.
waingapu
 
Posts: 377
Joined: Mon Jun 10, 2013 4:14 pm

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby landog » Tue Apr 15, 2014 2:31 pm

The number of heart attacks per million person hours is 0.37
7200000 heart attacks/1971000 million person hours = 0.37

The number of million person hours per heart attack is 2.73
1971000 million person hours/7200000 heart attacks = 2.73
waingapu wrote:We are looking for the number of heart attacks per million person hours.
User avatar
landog
 
Posts: 2209
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 6:26 am
Location: Cleveland, Ohio

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby waingapu » Tue Apr 15, 2014 3:09 pm

landog wrote:The number of heart attacks per million person hours is 0.37
7200000 heart attacks/1971000 million person hours = 0.37

The number of million person hours per heart attack is 2.73
1971000 million person hours/7200000 heart attacks = 2.73
waingapu wrote:We are looking for the number of heart attacks per million person hours.



Yes, as I wrote earlier

"Now, I like numbers... and you are well educated in math and science. Perhaps....perhaps I am wrong, but please tell me where I have gone wrong and EvanG is correct."

You have supplied the reason why I was not correct. I was doing the opposite of the stated value we were looking for.
No, I wasn't smoking crack. Just that my head was thinking one way, though the problem was clearly stated in another way.

See, we can arrive at a correct answer without being snippy.
Thank you for the correction. EvanG was correct

So, for those running, you have 1 heart attack for every 559,322 hours of running.
For the general public you have 1 heart attack for every 2,730,000 hours of living.
So if you live from age 20 to age 90, some 70 years, you have about a 0.22 chance of a heart attack.
waingapu
 
Posts: 377
Joined: Mon Jun 10, 2013 4:14 pm

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby ChrisB » Wed Apr 16, 2014 9:05 am

ChrisB
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:30 am

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby Mober » Wed Apr 16, 2014 12:16 pm

avg 3 hours is pretty low more like 4 or more
Mober
 
Posts: 344
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 3:45 pm

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby waingapu » Wed Apr 16, 2014 12:29 pm

Mober wrote:avg 3 hours is pretty low more like 4 or more


True, but for the sake of the computation he is throwing in half-marathon runners, along with marathon runners.
There is no precise data to use, so he just used a rough number.
The average may be more like 4 hours when you make all the adjustments.
waingapu
 
Posts: 377
Joined: Mon Jun 10, 2013 4:14 pm

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby hazelrah » Wed Apr 16, 2014 1:56 pm

ChrisB wrote: if you look at older marathon runners, many are still running and i cannot think of one who is debilitated from their running career.
"

Yes! When I start hearing of people like Joan Benoit, Frank Shorter, and Bill Rogers keeling over from heart attacks then maybe I'll consider giving up running. In the meantime my odds of dying from planting my butt on a couch for a decade is way higher than my odds of dying from running 20, 30, 40, ... miles a week.

Mark
...the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now may very well be a self-perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing, created by a world totalitarian government based on money, ... Wallace Shawn
http://www.anginamonologues.net
User avatar
hazelrah
 
Posts: 2000
Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2009 9:04 pm
Location: Pacifica, CA

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby Spiral » Sat Apr 19, 2014 9:35 am

hazelrah wrote:
ChrisB wrote: if you look at older marathon runners, many are still running and i cannot think of one who is debilitated from their running career.
"

Yes! When I start hearing of people like Joan Benoit, Frank Shorter, and Bill Rogers keeling over from heart attacks then maybe I'll consider giving up running. In the meantime my odds of dying from planting my butt on a couch for a decade is way higher than my odds of dying from running 20, 30, 40, ... miles a week.

Mark

You might be interested in this piece titled Do Boston Marathoners Risk Heart Problems?
The new study looked at 42 Boston Marathoners who had been running for 12 years, on average, and trained about 40 miles a week. They finished the 2012 Boston Marathon in an average time of 4:20 on a scalding-hot day when many runners took 20 to 30 minutes longer than usual to finish the race.
. . .
The researchers chose 21 male runners from the 2012 Boston race, and 21 females. This was the experimental group. The control group was their spouses, 42 women and men who aren’t runners but share the same home and many of the same habits as their spouses. “By incorporating cohabiting partners who presumably follow somewhat similar lifestyle habits, we tried to minimize diet and lifestyle influences to better isolate the effect of high-intensity endurance running,” lead author Beth Taylor, Ph.D., told Newswire. Taylor serves as director of exercise physiology research at Hartford Hospital.
. . .
While marathoners and spouses had the same degree of carotid atherosclerosis, the runners had significantly lower body weight (149 vs 170), significantly lower resting heart rate (57 vs 69), significantly lower BMI (24 vs 27), significantly lower c-reactive protein (.6 vs 1.6), significantly higher HDL (68 vs 58), and significantly lower triglycerides (76 vs 103).

Pretty interesting, how they tried to isolate the impact of running all of those extra miles and racing those marathons. I'll keep my eyes open for more studies on this subject. In the meantime, maybe I won't necessarily limit myself to just one full marathon in my lifetime. Maybe it will be two or three. I might end up preferring half marathons simply because they don't require as much training.
User avatar
Spiral
 
Posts: 3005
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 8:18 pm
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana

Re: Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspe

Postby EvanG » Sat Apr 19, 2014 3:05 pm

Earlier in the thread I made this Calculation.
EvanG wrote:Based on the calculations below, the heart attack rate for an American during a marathon is about 5 times as high as the heart attack rate for the average American not running a race.


I just wanted to point out that this was only during the event. It is entirely likely that people running on a regular basis might have a higher chance of having a heart attack during the race. But over the course of a full year, they might have a much lower chance of having a heart attack than the sedentary person, because the race is only a few hours. The risk of a heart attack the rest of the year dominates, and running a moderate amount should be protective.
-----
Started in June 2012 at 39
Lost 25 lbs. Feel great.
EvanG
 
Posts: 536
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2012 11:15 am

Previous

Return to The Lounge

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests


cron

Welcome!

Sign up to receive our regular articles, recipes, and news about upcoming events.