New Study: High Mileage may be unhealthy as being Sedentary in Older Adults

Haji wrote:

They lost all credibility with this line:

"The most notorious example of a jogger coming to grief was Jim Fixx, the author of the 1977 bestseller The Complete Book Of Running.

His book is credited with starting the revolution that made running and jogging a daily routine for many. But in July 1987 Mr Fixx died at 52 from a heart attack after his daily run."

You forgot to mention that Mr. Fixx had a condition in his heart that was hereditary and would have killed him regardless of his lifestyle.

This sounds a lot like a rehash of some old information that came out 2 years ago. As noted previously, this is a statistical analysis in which the healthy variables of running are RULED OUT as confounding variables. Here is a link to Alex Hutchinson’s (sweat science in RW) review of the evidence.

http://www.runnersworld.com/health/will-running-too-much-kill-you

Have there been any corroborating studies of the original study? NO.

Have those studies and the early conclusions been openly peer-reviewed and published? NO.

Has that Doc continued his tours and pushed the "too much running" agenda? NO.

Jim Fixx's father died at 35.

High mileage, ie. 160 to 200 miles a week may be bad for you. So keep it to 20 miles a day.

This crap was already rejected:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=6316148&page=1

Northern Star:

"The core problem with what the media is reporting about this is that they are equating a nonsignificant outcome with the absence of an effect, i.e. people think that the lack of statistical significance between death rates of sedentary people and death rates of the very small groups of joggers who made it out the door more than a few times a week is evidence that too much running = just as dangerous as being sedentary, instead of being evidence that small sample sizes = unreliable statstics"

Somebody please explain how a person can be more or less likely to die. I thought there was 100% chance of everyone dying. Also, this only applies to jogging according to the study, not elite runners like us.

4 miles a day @ 8:30 pace is neither high mileage nor stressful.

Haji wrote:

They lost all credibility with this line:

"The most notorious example of a jogger coming to grief was Jim Fixx, the author of the 1977 bestseller The Complete Book Of Running.

His book is credited with starting the revolution that made running and jogging a daily routine for many. But in July 1987 Mr Fixx died at 52 from a heart attack after his daily run."

the main problem with this line of thinking is that no on knows how much earlier Jim Fixx would have succumbed to the condition that killed him had he not been in superb cardiovascular shape from running.

Post of the year

The real issue may actually be that scientific journals are result biased. A recent study on the effects of learning a second language concluded that it improve the ability to concentrate. The problem was that the same researchers did several runs of the study and only one got the result they wanted. The rest showed no benefit. But journals do not require disclosure of no result studies because they want to publish results. I wonder how many times these researchers pulled data and found nothing.

Also, I have never seen a study with a scientifically significant set of "vigorous" runners. The "vigorous" runners are usually classified as running more than 20 mpw at a pace faster than 9 mi per min. I know people who are 20-30 lbs overweight who can run 40 mpw at 8 min pace.

The other issue is that the alleged higher mortality may simply be that there are people with unknown congenital heart issues who are out there hammering it on the roads who should not be. If that is the case, the mortality issue may be a red herring for those with no pre-existing cardiovascular issues.

What is completely lacking in these studies is data on chronic disease and day to day health outcomes. It may be the case that runners check out earlier, but have fewer chronic illnesses and generally live much better, but shorter lives.

Precious Roy wrote:

The real issue may actually be that scientific journals are result biased. A recent study on the effects of learning a second language concluded that it improve the ability to concentrate. The problem was that the same researchers did several runs of the study and only one got the result they wanted. The rest showed no benefit. But journals do not require disclosure of no result studies because they want to publish results. I wonder how many times these researchers pulled data and found nothing.

Yes, in this case the limits for "moderate" and "strenuous" running are arbitrary selected in order to get the wanted result. With slightly different grouping, the results could have been the opposite, because such tiny numbers (40 people / 2 deaths) make it possible to play around just the way you want.

What I don't get is how this study managed to get published in such a high impact factor journal. What were the reviewers thinking?

This is a very good point. When statistical significance is reported it is held to one particular study but if they potentially repeated the same study (possibly by just resampling even from within their larger data pool) multiple times until they got the results they wanted then this would lead to a higher false discovery rate than expected. Thankfully, there has been recent development into something called "quality preserving database" to help control this type of error in studies. Currently it's being utilized in drug development stuff where we really do need to have the error rates controlled over all studies.

I also agree that there is bias in only reporting significant results. Supposing they could/did report all interesting studies then you could do a meta-analysis and find the real truth with regard to the relationships between running and health/mortality.

These studies reporting on the danger of high mileage or high intensity workouts for older runners do seem, like the Litchfield Hills Road Race, to keep recurring on a regular basis. I'll leave the challenge or verification to doctors and other medical experts. However, I agree with my father--Jim Fixx--who committed to running as part of a healthy outlook on life and a way to manage stress.A couple of errors in the thread: My father did not have a brother who also died of a heart attack. His father (an editor of Time Magazine), never an exerciser and a three-pack-a-day smoker, did have a heart attack in his late-30s and died at 41. My father stopping smoking the day the Surgeon General's report came out in 1963 but could definitely have eaten more sensible foods throughout his life. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy said that my father's arteries were so occluded that she theorized that if his heart had not been so strong from running, that he would have died 10 or twelves years earlier.Dr. Ken Cooper's book, Running Without Fear, is the best treatment of that topic I have read.Finally, my father neglected or ignored warning signs in the months leading to his death. Sadly, his heart attack was fatal and he did not get to alter his lifestyle. He would have been a powerful example of how to get bad health news and respond with the sort of life changes that would, indeed, add life to your years and years to your life.See you on the roads--John FixxConnecticut

Haji wrote:

They lost all credibility with this line:

"The most notorious example of a jogger coming to grief was Jim Fixx, the author of the 1977 bestseller The Complete Book Of Running.

His book is credited with starting the revolution that made running and jogging a daily routine for many. But in July 1987 Mr Fixx died at 52 from a heart attack after his daily run."

At its root, this study mistakes a quality of life issue for one of quantity. Does anyone run, or run more, to add years to their life? Or are they after some shorter- or mid-term goals, like building their base, banging out a few good races, and from time to time, just being flat-out better than the guy who did less?

If you read the article you will see that the figures quoted do not support the headline - 128 deaths in 413 sedentary non joggers, 28 deaths in 1098 joggers (deaths not stated separately for strenuous or non-strenuous joggers). That is a much higher death rate for the sedentary group than for all the jogger put together.

fred wrote:

4 miles a day @ 8:30 pace is neither high mileage nor stressful.

This depends on the person. My HR goes up to 120-130 @7mph (8:34/mile).

I saw a woman doing a "walk/jog" exercise on a treadmill the other day. Her HR went up to 180s after a few minutes of 6mph. I cannot imagine how stressful 7mph would be for her. (Or how long she could last at that pace.)

Out of 40 strenuous runners, 2 died. Had only 1 died, then strenuous runners would have had only half the death rate of the sedentary group. If one more had died, they would have had 50% greater mortality than the sedentary group!

As another poster said, 40 is way too small to do a statistical analysis, especially of mortality.

A good point here..

All the years of being a runner, I really never heard any of my fellow runners talk about the health benefits at all. (running and racing since 1977)

More so lately because running continues to evolve into this fitness activity.

I know that I NEVER got involved with it for health reasons..

Bit, for an academic discussion the health benefits are interesting.