Study: Marathoners have more artery plaque

mako wrote:

say whattt??? wrote:

Good article.

http://evidencemag.com/exercise-oxidative-stress/

Now I'm not sure whether you agree with me or not, because that article basically confirms what I claimed.

It points out a very elementary exercise concept. Running causes adaptations that are good for running: increased blood volume, more mitochondria, larger heart, etc. Our entire body works this way, regardless of the stimulus. If we consume a lot of alcohol over a period of time, we produce more enzymes that allow us to break it down. It helps get the alcohol out of our bloodstream faster, which protects us from the poison we are drinking. It doesn't really matter what the activity is. Our bodies try to adapt to the environment all the time to be able to handle it better.

This is why if running more does cause atherosclerosis, there's a possibility that this may be an adaptation that is good for running, although perhaps not necessarily good for longevity. Maybe stiff arteries allow for better blood flow? You'll notice that the researchers don't report artery size along with plaque amount. They say, runners have more crud in the pipes, but they fail to mention if our pipes our bigger. Maybe our overall fluid flow is better despite the plaque? Maybe larger arteries with plaque are stronger and better for running than smaller arteries without plaque? When they look at the plaque, they do chest scans that pick up the calcium deposits, but those scans do not show artery size.

This is why some cardiologists point out that they don't really understand the science behind endurance athletes. They are still in the "find correlations" phase of research. What comes next is discovering causal mechanisms, so that they can isolate these variables and eliminate confounding factors in correlative studies. And distance runners seem to have a lot of exceptions. Despite all the miles, our joints are very strong, our bones are more dense. People used to think running would destroy our joints, but that's now been disproven. It makes them stronger. Where would runners be today if we listened to those first few studies on joint wear? On the couch, probably.

I would think it's problematic that the runners averaged 5 years older than the control group. The plaque in the control group is presumably going to continue growing over the next 5 years, right? Especially considering they're mostly obese with hyperlipidemia.

But regardless, these results and a variety of others should be concerning for older marathoners. I wonder if our system for handling oxidative stress doesn't start to degrade as we get older, making us more prone to damage from long endurance efforts.

Mostly, but not fully. It says moderate exercise. There was mention of not being able to cope with higher levels of oxidative stress.

say whattt??? wrote:

Well if you cited several studies that have nothing to do with marathoners having more plaque build up but rather longevity then it must be true. I am sorry. I thought people died for other reasons than plaque in their arteries. My bad, Dufus. Think of the original post. I listed several reasons that it is physiologically plausible for marathoners to have more plaque build up. Did I ever say marathoners were more unhealthy or would die sooner. Ummm, no. Does having more aque mean people will die sooner? Umm, no. Go crawl back in your sewer you lousy POS.

You said that it running can lead to plaque build-up and heart disease ( 2nd part in another post). You acted like this was very plausible and common (yes, you did). And yes, plaque build-up is a central symptom AND cause of CVD. CVD is one of the leading causes of death, so yes, (still with me? C'mon, you can do this) you strongly linked a lot of running to CVD and increased mortality. The facts do not bear this out as being likely. In fact, quite on the contrary, running specifically, and exercise/aerobic exercise in general are linked to better mortality/health/CVD outcomes compared to non-exercisers. Two (of the many) benefits of aerobic exercise are lower resting heart rate, and higher VO2 max, and the ability to exercise intensely for a good amount of time. All of these things are STRONGLY linked to lower CVD and mortality.

So clearly your understanding of what leads to CVD, and the effects of exercise on heart disease is extremely incomplete. Sorry that this fact hurts your feelings and makes you lash out like a 12 year old sent to his room.

Let me guess: Your prescription for reducing CVD: lots of read meat and deadlifts to failure?? You sound like bro-science believer, so likely.

Sorry dad, you can continue to try to twist what I said, but it still won't be what I said. The OP had nothing to do with death, but plaque build up. You are reaching. You are assuming quite a bit about me and where my thoughts are going, and you are wrong. Sewer time you effing turd.

. In a link provided by that "good article", that exact information is provided. If you weren't such a lazy dumba$$, you could have figured this out yourself. Here you go, little boy-

(and he never said "just running". But intense exercise is intense exercise, the body's response is similar)

----------------------------------------------------

"In addition to the impact on energy homeostasis, exercise inevitably increases ROS and NOS generation that can be harmful to unprepared tissues but may also activate adaptive responses to oxidative stress inducing antioxidant defense systems by upregulation of responsible gene expression (Powers et al., 1999; Ji et al., 2006). An acute bout of exercise activates the transcription factor NF-kB (nuclear factor kappa B) to enhance transcription of genes for antioxidative enzymes such as mitochondrial Mn superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) via increased generation of ROS (Hollander et al., 2001; Hemmrich et al., 2003). Regular exercise also increases antioxidant defenses in the skeletal muscle upregulating SOD and glutathione peroxidase gene expression, thereby adapting stronger oxidative stresses (Powers and Lennon, 1999; Leeuwenburgh and Heinecke, 2001). It thus appears that ROS serves as messengers in exercise-induced adaptive gene expression. Franco et al. reported that myotubes exposed to H2O2 exhibit upregulation of mRNA for antioxidant enzymes (catalase, glutathione peroxidase, Cu, ZnSOD and MnSOD), suggesting that ROS is involved in the adaptive upregulation of antioxidant gene expression by exercise (Franco et al., 1999). In support of this suggestion, Khassaf et al. (2003) found that supplementation of vitamin C, a nutritional antioxidant, attenuates antioxidant defense including increase in shock protein (HSP) 70 in human lymphocytes and skeletal muscle. Similarly, the active isoform of another dietary antioxidant vitamin E and vitamin C inhibits induction of the mRNA of HSP 72, an important component of cellular protection, by exercise in human skeletal muscle (Fischer et al., 2006). Gomez-Cabrera et al. (2005) reported that the induction of antioxidative enzyme MnSOD and iNOS induced by exhaustive exercise is abolished by allopurinol, an inhibitor of xanthine oxidase, in the skeletal muscle of rats. Since the expression of these enzymes appears to be dependent on NF-kB that is activated by ROS, the adaptive process is suggested to be induced by ROS (Gomez- Cabrera et al., 2005). These findings illustrate essential roles of ROS in protective adaptation induced by exercise. Too much generation of ROS in unaccustomed muscles is obviously harmful while the modest generation by regular exercise is apparently beneficial to upregulating defense mechanisms against oxidative stress, thus forming a basis of hormetic effects of exercise."

I haven't read this entire thread, so I'm not sure if somebody has pointed this out yet, but this was not a blinded study. The group of marathoners was tested for this study, presumably by the authors of the paper, but the control group was taken from a database of asymptomatic people who had come in for clinic visits. So not only is it not blind, the data from the control and treatment groups were not even collected by the same people!

This is probably why the paper ended up in Missouri Medicine instead of a top-tier journal.

So, dickhead, if you actually read the article, it speaks of moderate exercises. How is being a serial marathon runner moderate exercise? Answer...it isn't. The blog you feel I cited is very well referenced, if you hadn't noticed...but I bet you did. Also, I mentioned it was a good article, I didn't use it as proof of anything like the other poster tried to do. You might also want to read http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2002/feb/marathon-runners-deplete-vitamins-raise-oxidative-stressor http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11032249orhttp://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBJN%2FBJN96_S1%2FS0007114506002303a.pdf&code=26b0669a1effa876c3e652438a6bb5ddorhttp://charlie.ambra.unibo.it/didattica/materiale_didattico/biochimica_inquinamento/oxygen/ROS-RNS/PDF/Oxidative%20stress.pdfSo what I originally proposed that you, idiot, were so opposed to, is that oxidative stress could be responsible for increases in plaque build-up in marathon runners. You acted like this was certainly not plausible. Guess what, after reading all the information, you should realize it IS in fact a plausible explanation. Note I never said anything about mortality...you did. But I think you realized this because you tried to jump on another post with a research article about moderate exercise. Well, the OP wasn't about moderate exercise, now was it? So you try to look all superior you freaking nimrod, but adding words and thoughts and assuming to try to make yourself look right. Well, guess what, you aren't. Oxidative stress is a plausible explanation for increases in plaque in marathon runners based on reasearch. If you want more, google it, there is more. Now eff off.

I think it is plausible Higher oxidative stress from exhausted environments along with fattier diets could lead to plaque.

Marathoners also have thinner supply to the heart muscle itself.

What is the primary cause of ischemic heart disease? Plaque? Thickened valves?

And do runners have increased incidence of IHD?

Why does everyone stray off topic? Just because someone may have more plaque than the next guy doesn't mean he will have heart disease. That was NOT the original topic.

say whattt??? wrote:

Mostly, but not fully. It says moderate exercise. There was mention of not being able to cope with higher levels of oxidative stress.

I don't think so and recommend reading the article again.

And even the very last paragraph says: "Most evidence indicates that if you train in a progressive, intelligent manner, with adequate recovery between workouts, you can build up to extremely high training loads and still be protected against potentially dangerous levels of oxidative stress."

senusal wrote:

along with fattier diets could lead to plaque.

1. fatty diets don't lead to CVD, carbohydrates do

2. runners eat a very high carbohydrate diet

Not all research agrees on this, and the article is more in support of moderate exercise protecting against oxidative stress. Other research doesn't agree, and not everyone has the same adaptive response (I did a lot of reading yesterday).

Most marathon "runners" are borderline obese and struggle round in 4 or 5 hours. Doesn't surprise me that they would suffer the same health problems as other obese people

Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:

senusal wrote:

along with fattier diets could lead to plaque.

1. fatty diets don't lead to CVD, carbohydrates do

2. runners eat a very high carbohydrate diet

Cult_fit, ur a riot as usual.

Here is what is most amusing about you "low-carb/sat fat is the best!" crowd. There has been literally aeons of research supporting the fact that a high sat fat diet can and does raise total and ldl cholesterol and lead to CVD, and yet you mock this notion as not being backed up enough by science, and only based on some imperfect correlation/epidemiological studies (which is not true). Yet, at the VERY SAME TIME, you declare "carbs cause CVD" despite there being 100x less evidence of this theory, and at best, it being based on the same type of correlation studies or simply hypotheses.

Even you can see the inconsistency of this, right????

Or do you have some gold-standard, double-blind, large 10 year long clinical trials with hard outcomes (CVD deaths) that clearly show "high carb diets cause CVD" that you are sitting on and don't feel like sharing with us? Well, this seems to be they type of proof you are demanding regarding the sat-fat CVD link, so why when it comes to your silly diet principles you don't demand the same type of ironclad evidence?? Ohhhh, i get it, it's different when it something YOU want to believe in, then......a couple small studies and a few blog posts by some nobody suggesting what you want to hear is suddenly is enough to for you to make your mind up.

You're a joker and you know it.

You didn't read the NY Times article about Saturated Fat and CVD? Conclusion: this link that you talk about does not exist.

MORON.

This thread is not about sat fats/carbs/diet. Kindly shut up, both of you. You've had the same stupid argument a dozen times.

ho hum wrote:

This thread is not about sat fats/carbs/diet. Kindly shut up, both of you. You've had the same stupid argument a dozen times.

true, but the thread IS about causes of plaque build-up and heart disease. So don't act like we suddenly started discussing global warming. So kindly don't be a d-bag.

I will only say this to Cult_Fit for now, and we will take it up on another thread on the issue of diet and CVD link- (you can block your eyes and ears if you don't want to read this)-

1) article in NYtimes about research article finding no correlation between sat fat and CVD was just the type of correlation/epi study that he and his type mock and as only showing correlation/non-correlation (and not causation/non-causation) when such studies DO find significant correlation between sat fat and/or red meat intake and CVD. But suddenly this type of research is gold standard in his eyes because it tells him what he wants? Laughable.

2) initial* results of article found no significant correlation between ANY type of fat and CVD. So nothing good about PUFA's (omega 3's) and nothing bad about omega 6 or even trans fats. So much for his beliefs on those issues (if he wants to believe this research, he can't cherry pick what he likes. Time to eat as much trans fat as you want!)

3) *later *REVISED* results of article did find some protection of omega 3's. More importantly: whey revised?? Because many other researchers immediately found problems with their research: studies left out meta-analysis, math errors, and other issues. I.E.- shoddy, shoddy study. So much for conclusive proof, eh?

"A number of scientists are criticizing the paper and even calling on the authors to retract it.

"They have done a huge amount of damage," says Walter Willett, chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "I think a retraction with similar press promotion should be considered."

T-Rex, I have been running for 20+ years and many of my friends are runners, too.

I always believed the conventional wisdom that because of running 50mpw and because of a diet that was basically low fat (like everyone else) we're all in great health. But over the years I realized that my older runner friends suffer from the same problems as the sedentary folks.

I, too, began questioning what runners world and all the other magazines teach us: that a diet high in whole grains and low in animal fats is good for us. I ended up with a really low HDL (45). LDL is low, too (which is ok). I started changing my stance on diet (included more meat, reduced empty carbs (bread, etc.) and feel a lot better since.

Also, it became evident that running 6x a week may simply be too much. I see a lot of older runners with hip/knee problems and honestly, that's not what I want.

So in that light, what Bad Wiggens and CrossFit guy and even the UK Limey guy are preaching makes a lot more sense to me now than it did a few years ago.

Sometimes you have to go back to square one and let go of your believes.