Marathon Runners Die at Finish Line Cardiac Events Suspected

[Healthiswealth]

I have no way of knowing, but in addition to being very saddened by this news, I have to think that neither of them were following this WOE.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/04/14/2-runners-die-near-finish-line-half-marathon-in-north-carolina/

I wish that reporters could investigate their diet without causing the families further pain. It's so sad to think that they undoubtedly thought they were very healthy and then, in the midst of their "proof" of their health, they died.

[nayasmom]

Unless you have the facts to hand, you can't presume that they were omnivores. Last week I happened upon a blog journal (not here) about a young man who is a competitive marathoner and vegan. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer in I think May of 2012 or '13.
We don't think of vegans as candidates for cancer, but it happens. I suspect that this particular individual consumed way too much protein in the mistaken belief that as an athlete he needed more than the average person. And who knows? Maybe it was the water.
The two men who died were in their 30's, which makes me wonder if they weren't perhaps too confident to hydrate properly. In humid conditions, it's easy to dehydrate, and though the daytime temp was 70*, it doesn't allow for the humidity factor, which can make it feel like it's 90* in the shade. I live at 4500' elevation in desert conditions, so for me to do a half marathon at sea level with 90% humidity, yeah that would twist my knickers a bit!
Robyn

[eXtremE]

I personally think vegans are more protected from heart disease than cancer. I agree with what nayasmom said. At 31 and 35, CAD seems unlikely but possible. Probably some other cardiac event responsible for the deaths but who knows? Heatstroke seems a more likely cause. The older you are with a bad diet, the more likely a heart attack from CAD from running long distance IMO.

Basketball great Pistol Pete Maravich collapsed and died of a heart attack while playing a leisure game of basketball with some church going friends. It was discovered at autopsy that he was born missing one coronary artery from birth and the other two I think were compensating for the birth defect and his heart was grossly enlarged. I am surprised he did not suffer an event during his active NBA years.

[waingapu]

More likely that one or both of these men died of ventricular fibrillation rather than a clot at a narrowing of a artery.

However it is possible that a narrowing at a certain artery sent the heart into ventricular fibrillation even without a complete blockage.

I know someone who survived such a incident....... some 300 yards short of the finish line and medical tent.
Spectators immediately began doing compressions and the medical team was summoned right away.
They restarted the heart, rushed the person to the hospital and cooled him down to 33 degrees,, then induced a coma.
Two days later he awoke with a sound brain and fairly minimal heart muscle damage.
Now, this was a gentleman about age 60 and indeed their was a stenosis, which was then bypassed with single graft.
However no total blockage had taken place. Instead the heart just freaked out and stopped pumping in a effective pattern

Had that incident occurred anywhere except 300 yards from the medical tent, the patient would have died.
It was almost like a miracle of everything working to help him live.
He is back running.

[eXtremE]

More likely that one or both of these men died of ventricular fibrillation rather than a clot at a narrowing of a artery.

However it is possible that a narrowing at a certain artery sent the heart into ventricular fibrillation even without a complete blockage.

I know someone who survived such a incident....... some 300 yards short of the finish line and medical tent.
Spectators immediately began doing compressions and the medical team was summoned right away.
They restarted the heart, rushed the person to the hospital and cooled him down to 33 degrees,, then induced a coma.
Two days later he awoke with a sound brain and fairly minimal heart muscle damage.
Now, this was a gentleman about age 60 and indeed their was a stenosis, which was then bypassed with single graft.
However no total blockage had taken place. Instead the heart just freaked out and stopped pumping in a effective pattern

Had that incident occurred anywhere except 300 yards from the medical tent, the patient would have died.
It was almost like a miracle of everything working to help him live.
He is back running.

Yeah, this is also my line of thinking too after reading the link to the article.

[dteresa]

At the company fitness center where I go the seniors and retirees usually go in the morning. I do not know the details but one guy had a heart attack last week. I was not there but the gym manager said they had to use cpr and whatever else they use to revive him and they kept him alive until the ambulance arrived. There is a pretty good system for emergencies which involves calling security to allow the ambulance through the gates but the ambulance took fifteen minutes to arrive. I had a heart attack and coded but I was in the ER at the time. No time was lost.

I often look at some of the older guys at the gym. There is one man who strenuously peddles an exercise bike that is also equipped with those handle bars which also exercise the arms. He is very overweight and I see him there at least three times per week. I often think that before he exercises so strenuously he should lose weight. But I am guessing that he is exercising to lose. He is a stranger so I do not offer any diet suggestions. You would not normally expect a young athlete to succumb to a heart attack and we do not exactly know what happened to the men in the article. However, we do know that Jim Fixx and a couple of others did die from a heart attack and they did have atherosclerosis. Mr. Fixx argued publicly with Pritikin. He believed if you could run a certain distance in under whatever time he specified you did not have to worry about what you ate.

I do not often hear of anyone warning exercisers about their diets and weight. The idea seems to be that if you exercise, that will take care of any health problems. We also see this in Ms Obama's Let's Move program for kids. It is a good idea to get kids away from the tv and computer but with more and more children overweight, I hope that responsible teachers and other adults will be cautious about pushing these children too far. Diet first.

didi

[EvanG]

If you do the math, you will find out that there is a slightly elevated chance of having a heart attack during a marathon. Lots of people run marathons, so lots have heart attacks during the race. 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.

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.

[JOJO1947]

I never pay much attention to studies comparing a 'vegan' diet to any other diet. The word vegan' does not mean healthy. If your diet is soda, potato chips, coconut oil, donuts, candy, no B12 supplementation - well, you get my drift. I prefer to call my WOE WFPB minimally processed no SOS, which of course makes people think I'm a nutcase, but all I can say is that I'm a healthy one.

[waingapu]

If you do the math, you will find out that there is a slightly elevated chance of having a heart attack during a marathon. Lots of people run marathons, so lots have heart attacks during the race. 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.

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.

While I appreciate your efforts on allowing math to bring the real issues into focus, perhaps you ought to lay off the crack when doing the computations

I seem to get .56 heart attacks per million hours of the runners. (using your figures)
Whereas I seem to get 2.73 heart attacks per million hours of the couch potatoes.

Not to mention the fact that if that crowd was doing other physical activity such as shoveling snow, or walking up stairs at the baseball park, then their rate of heart attacks would no doubt skyrocket to 10, 20, or 100 per million hours.

Lay off the crack, redo your math, and report back.
(now watch, someone will find my math to be faulty)

[Spiral]

While I appreciate your efforts on allowing math to bring the real issues into focus, perhaps you ought to lay off the crack when doing the computations

Nothing wrong with crack. Crack is considered a whole grain.

[Lacey]

Diet first.
didi

I rarely post just to say I agree, but Amen, Didi.

[patty]

Diet first.
didi

I rarely post just to say I agree, but Amen, Didi.

I totally agree... I imagine he is following his doctor advice that he needs to lose weight without any instructions from the doctor.

This is from Dr. Esselstyn's "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease":

A few years ago, I was on a cruise ship giving a presentation about my nutrition program and its dramatic results in patients with severe coronary artery disease. Toward the end a man in a straw hat approached me, and near tears, with audible anger in his voice, said, “I’ve been doing everything my doctor told me to, and now I have to have a second bypass. I can’t believe no one told me there was another option!”

That’s the point of this book: to tell the world what I have learned.

Aloha, patty

[patty]

I have no way of knowing, but in addition to being very saddened by this news, I have to think that neither of them were following this WOE.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/04/14/2-runners-die-near-finish-line-half-marathon-in-north-carolina/

I wish that reporters could investigate their diet without causing the families further pain. It's so sad to think that they undoubtedly thought they were very healthy and then, in the midst of their "proof" of their health, they died.

I have a feeling they were raised on a SAD. Given the heat it was too bad they didn't cancel the race.

This if from Dr. Esselstyn's "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease":

Autopsies of soldiers during the Korean and Vietnam wars showed the effects of America’s artery-clogging diet even on the very young. The arteries of Asian soldiers were largely clean, free of fatty deposits. But almost 80 percent of American battlefield casualties showed gross evidence of coronary artery disease—clogging and damage that, had the soldiers lived, would have grown worse with every passing decade.4 What’s more, in recent years, researchers have observed that as residents of areas with a low incidence of cardiovascular disease begin to adopt a more Western style of life and diet, the incidence of disease—especially coronary disease—rises dramatically.

Aloha, patty

[Starchmonger]

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

[EvanG]

While I appreciate your efforts on allowing math to bring the real issues into focus, perhaps you ought to lay off the crack when doing the computations

....

Lay off the crack, redo your math, and report back.
(now watch, someone will find my math to be faulty)

Put down the snark sandwich. It's not on plan

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 anything. However, we both got a result that the heart attack rates between marathoners and other people during regular life are about the same. So, the idea that marathoners are dropping dead of heart attacks because they are running is unfounded.