Running keeps you young

Mike Mason · Running keeps you young

Ernie was part of this study..

http://med.stanford.edu/news_releases/2008/august/running.html

Mike Mason · oops take care

In a study of male marathoners age 50 and up, researchers found that,
>>> despite their high activity levels, the runners were as likely as other
>>> men
>>> their age to have calcium buildup in their heart arteries.
>>>
>>> And when compared with men who had a similar amount of heart disease
>>> risk
>>> factors, marathoners actually tended to have more calcium in their
>>> arteries.
>>>
>>> Calcium is a component of artery-clogging plaques, and a high coronary
>>> calcium "score" -- as measured by non-invasive CT scans -- predicts an
>>> elevated risk of suffering a heart attack.
>>>
>>> Since regular exercise is a heart-healthy habit, it's not clear why
>>> marathoners would have calcium scores similar to those of other men
>>> their
>>> age. In general, the runners did have fewer traditional risk factors for
>>> heart disease; on average, they weighed less, had lower "bad" LDL
>>> cholesterol, higher "good" HDL cholesterol and lower blood pressure.
>>>
>>> This raises the possibility that marathon running itself contributes to
>>> calcium buildup in some people -- but that is an unlikely scenario,
>>> according to study leader Dr. Stefan Mohlenkamp, of the West-German
>>> Heart
>>> Center Essen.
>>>
>>> "Based on published data on the benefits of regular exercise, this
>>> possibility seems unlikely," he told Reuters Health.
>>>
>>> Instead, Mohlenkamp explained, the answer may rest in the formerly
>>> less-than-healthy lifestyles of some of the runners in his study. Many,
>>> he
>>> noted, had only started serious, competitive running in their 40s, and
>>> half
>>> were former smokers.
>>>
>>> Mohlenkamp also stressed that in general, running is a good thing. "You
>>> live longer, you live better," he said. "Our study does not question at
>>> all
>>> the proven benefits of regular exercise."
>>>
>>> For the study, which is published in the European Heart Journal, the
>>> researchers recruited 108 apparently healthy male marathoners age 50 and
>>> older. They calculated each man's Framingham Risk Score -- a standard
>>> measure that doctors use to estimate a person's risk of having a heart
>>> attack in the next 10 years. It is based on age, sex, blood pressure,
>>> cholesterol and smoking habits.
>>>
>>> The researchers also used CT scans to calculate each runner's coronary
>>> calcium score.
>>>
>>> They then compared the marathoners with a group of men who had taken
>>> part
>>> in another study.
>>>
>>> Overall, 13 percent of the marathoners had a calcium score above 400,
>>> which
>>> indicates a large of amount of plaque in the arteries, while 23 percent
>>> had
>>> scores indicating moderate plaque buildup. Those rates were nearly
>>> identical
>>> to those of the comparison group.
>>>
>>> And when the researchers compared the runners with men who had the same
>>> Framingham Risk Score as they did, they found that the marathoners had
>>> higher rates of plaque buildup.
>>>
>>> While regular exercise is heart-healthy, it is known that strenuous
>>> exercise can trigger a heart attack or heart-rhythm disturbance in
>>> people
>>> with pre-existing heart disease. The implication of the current
>>> findings,
>>> according to Mohlenkamp, is that conventional risk factor assessment may
>>> underestimate the heart risks of some older runners.
>>>
>>> He said that when older adults go to their doctors asking whether such
>>> high-level exercise is safe for them, it's important for the doctor to
>>> take
>>> a detailed risk factor history -- checking whether the patient has ever
>>> had
>>> high blood pressure or has ever been overweight, for instance.
>>>
>>> In cases where the patient has a history of risk factors, Mohlenkamp
>>> said,
>>> it may be appropriate to do further, non-invasive testing, such as a CT
>>> scan
>>> for coronary artery calcium in addition to a stress test, which looks at
>>> the
>>> heart's activity during exercise.
>>>
>>> It is not generally recommended that people without heart disease
>>> symptoms
>>> undergo these cardiac tests. But Mohlenkamp said that when it comes to
>>> judging whether it's safe for an older adult to exercise at such levels,
>>> it
>>> is "prudent" to not rely on their current risk factors alone.
>>>
>>> SOURCE: European Heart Journal, August 2008.
>>>

Running keeps you young

oops take care