Marathon runners have heart damage and we should all exercise less..

I read that too.

Bhah also “gets it”. And always has based on the posts he puts on here…

Is this not just your “perception” playing tricks on you? Your appraisal is certainly subjective, lacking any objective measurements.

If anything this slightly whiffs of an addiction angle. You “feel” better with 8+ hours rather than only 5.

Feeling is perception — there is obviously no objective measurement of how I subjectively feel. Or do you really believe we can objectively measure people‘s sense of wellbeing?

There is no addiction angle. 8ish hours is 60mpw for me. I’ve never exceeded 72mpw. The only time I’ve trained more in a week was on a bike, and that was 12-14 hours a week during Covid lockdowns.

That being said, I have years of data showing better sleep and greater productivity at work when my training is consistent.

Yes. I’d rather die early than look like this goofball.

I think you should look into this more and reconsider... 900 is way high. The cut off for risk is higher than 100.

I take several supplements to reduce inflammation. My calcium score was 37.

My training partner was 150. We both see one of the top cardiologists in our region. He recommended and she started a statin. It wasn't Lipitor, but I don't remember what it was.

UK…..lol

medicaljournals.se

Effect of different levels of exercise on telomere length: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: To investigate the effect of different levels of exercise on telomere length. Methods: ...

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Lots of studies show LONGER telomeres in endurance athletes/runners/strength trainers

Inconsistent findings across the studies, one of which complicates the picture a bit: “Active individuals tend to exhibit higher cardiorespiratory fitness, which is associated with increased telomere length (36). Savela et al. reported that men in the highest physical activity group had the lowest mortality rate (37). Ludlow et al. found that moderate levels of physical activity may have a more protective influence on telomere length than both low and high levels of exercise (34). The inconsistency in our study could be due to the increased breadth of physical activity, genetic diversity of participants, and sample size.”

There are multiple aspects of the discussion. In the current thread, the guy cited in the article provided by OP is someone who discourages lots of kinds of exercise (to the point of allowing only low-volume, low-intensity exercise).

Elsewhere here, someone noted that the issue is less about not really exercising vs. exercising a ton, but about what kind of exercise, with what volume and intensity.

Some of the heart-specific studies have found issues similar to the Ludlow findings here about telomere length: moderate is better than high or low.

That was also more common in findings in the 2010-2016 range, I believe (Ludlow is 2011), but I’ve since seen some cardiology research that didn’t support those findings; the risk for high-volume, high-intensity endurance athletes was not significantly higher than for moderate exercisers, and certainly not as high as indicated by some previous studies.

I am near old enough to collect social security. When I tell people I run, they often exclaim how I will need knee replacement soon. My reply is that they have the wrong model of the body. They think of it as a car. You use the brakes, they wear down, and eventually you need new ones. If that applied to people, then going to the gym and lifting weights would use up your muscle tissue and you would soon be a pile of jelly on the floor. Instead you get stronger, because you body says that was not enough muscle, better build more.

Next they will tell me about Joe or Sam who did who knows what crazy thing. I tell them, if you cut your finger the skin grows back and tougher than before. If you cut your finger off, it does not grow back. Same with working out. There is a point where you have cut your finger off.

You can run and also do all the things you mentioned. Nothing is stopping you.

Thanks for your insight. What supplements are you taking?

Yes I did want to have a heart CT and MRI tests performed. But my health insurance denied the tests.

Reason was when I did the treadmill stress test, my Bruce protocol results (level 9) put me in the healthy superior category.

What a Paradox I'm in with the Health insurance. On one hand my.health insurance says I have high calcium. But my treadmill test says I am healthy,and no.needs flr.further testing.

Would i

Would'nt be cheaper to run the tests now than down the road 10 years pay for heart surgery?

So you cant take measurements then? Even improvements in training / racing performances can be measured. Or do you just go by “feel”.

And as for consistency…do you have to be beyond 8 hours of training to be seen as consistent? Really? Of course not. You could be doing 2 hours a week or less, and as long as it was each week, every week, that would be consistent. In fact, the very idea that your training volume is so yo yo in nature implies anything but consistency.

The annual running injury rate of up to 70%+ ( depending on the source) would indicate that many are attempting to “cut their fingers off” on a regular basis.

Of course the nature of running injuries implies that many do not know they are about to cut their fingers off, until they have actually done it. But by then, it is often too late. Like the person who thinks that they are skilled with the knife, until time proves they actually aren’t, many runners think that their bodies can handle training loads, until their bodies prove that they can’t. However, unlike the knife wielder, who once cut, probably takes a lot more care in future, most runners come back from one injury and recklessly build up to where they were before, and expect a different result. Of course, most times there isn’t. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? 🤔

This extensive, longitudinal study backs up the idea that, especially as we age, too much high intensity exercise ( over 9 METS) in relation to the overall volume of what we do, is not the best idea.

Now 9 METS is pretty much a jog. Once you get into anything faster then you are in the vigorous intensity bracket of this study.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Exercise Volume Versus Intensity and the Progression of Coronary Atherosclerosis in Middle-Aged and Older Athletes: Findings From the MARC-2 Study - PubMed

Exercise intensity but not volume was associated with progression of coronary atherosclerosis during 6-year follow-up. It is intriguing that very vigorous intensity exercise was associated with greater CAC and calcified plaqu...

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This kind of asinine has been put out many times.

In the end, 1-2 hrs of heart strain a day for 22-23 hrs of excellent heart health outweighs 24 hrs of heart strain.

In a general formulation, 9 METS may be a jog. The researchers, however, assign values: “In addition, running, fitness, and cycling categories were assigned MET scores based on activity type, with MET scores of 11.8 and 7.0 allocated to running and jogging, respectively. Strength training was given a MET score of 3.5 and cardio fitness received a MET score of 5.5.” That’s somewhat helpful and clearer, but it leaves some questions unresolved.

I’m not sure what they’re calling “running and jogging.” no clarification of those categories exists after the sentence quoted above. It would differ from subject to subject, but I have no idea how they would assign values to, say, someone with 4 hours/week at no more than 9 min. miles, 45 min. at 7 min. miles, 15 min. at 6 min. miles who might call the activity a “run” but might have no more perceived exertion or % of heart rate than another doing an 11 min. mile jog (even though those was in the study are middle-aged people called competitive athletes, rather than just people recently off the couch). It seems obvious that there’s greater MET than merely crossing the line from “jogging” to “running,” but absent that information, I don’t know the effects, nor whether this change would actually be relevant.

On the two options of 7.0 vs. 11.8: It looks as though they’re turning something that is more of a a continuous numerical value into a discrete one (with a necessary distortion).

And they ultimately determine intensity at intensity x duration, even though they conclude that intensity is more important than duration (e.g., they reasonably refer to “3000 MET minutes/week as opposed to just “reaching MET of 12 2x/week”).

They also say the data adjusts for potential confounding factors, one of which is smoking. 5% of participants currently smoke, 45% have smoked, and 50% have never smoked. In spite of the purported adjustment (based on # of packs smoked), I’d be interested in knowing the actual data for those who never smoked.

And these types of studies general focus on the effects of “endurance exercise,” but if intensity is the real culprit, wouldn’t middle-aged middle-distance runners and sprinters be at significant risk?

Rather than list everything I take, I did a chatGPT search and came up with this list. I take everything on this list, except nattokinase and garlic extract. If I were in your position, I would add both of those to my routine. I will find out what statin my friend is taking. The approach is to take the statin until calcium is <100 and then discontinue the statin and monitor calcium levels while taking supplements instead.