running bad for health

Exercise addiction is real. Running a marathon at a good pace puts tremendous stress on your body.

I'm guessing an hour or 10 miles is the most you should run in a day.

I was asking more about long term running in terms of miles a week. Like how will running 60 miles a week for say 3 years affect your long term health.

hsrunnerasda wrote:

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/running-4-miles-day-bad-article-1.1901922

How much of this is true, if any?

"The researchers cautioned that since their study focused on heart attack survivors, their results might not be generalizable to the population at large."

If you've had a heart attack this applies to you. Of course your risk increases if you have diagnosed heart problems.

Also it's a no brainer that the amount you benefit from running starts to taper off as one continues to add mileage. You sure as hell aren't running a 2:30 marathon running 150 miles a week-- ACSM guidelines for aerobic activity.

Minutes per week, not miles dammit!!!

strange thing about science is that studies only relate to what was actually studied.

this study was done on heart attack survivors.

which means folk who have already had sufficient health issues they had a heart attack.

do you seriously need to be told that folk who have had a heart attack are at, "increased cardio-vascular risk" ?

if you have not had a heart attack, this study has nothing to say about how much exercise you can safely do.

oh, and is New York Daily News an actual newspaper, or is it one of those satirical sites that makes stuff up for lols?

cheers.

This is old news. In 1994 in his book The Antioxidant Revolution, Kenneth Cooper, M.D., presented studies that showed that running more than 30 miles per week increased health risks. He was widely criticized at the time, but that was because few people bothered to actually read what he said.

I had the opportunity to hear him speak on this topic back then. To give an analogy, imagine the Olympic ski jump.

Sedentary adults are at the very top of the ski jump with a relatively high risk. The very bottom of the ski jump before begins to curve up represents running 12 to 30 miles per week, the optimal amount of running for optimal health.

Running more than 30 miles per week represents the lip of the ski jump. Yes, it is higher than the dip just before it, but it is much lower than the top of the ski jump.

Cooper's premise was that runners could offset this additional health risk by taking supplements to reduce the damage caused by free radicals, which in turn are created by extreme exercise.

fisky wrote:

Cooper's premise was that runners could offset this additional health risk by taking supplements to reduce the damage caused by free radicals, which in turn are created by extreme exercise.

You mean like breathing more oxygen? Does anyone actually believe the that oxidative stress of lots of running is more harmful than the oxidative stress of not doing much exercise?

Glycation is the biggest "enemy". Minimize glycolysis by training aerobically and alactically. Race pace 400m-marathon is the most stressful and risky from a health perspective.

Basically, do your best not to overtrain and focus on efficiency rather than bruting through hard workouts. Race very selectively.

Health and performance are two different fields, with overlap that is alwasy incomplete, sometimes non-existent.

I should add that a high fat/low carb diet shifts the body to lypolitic rather than glycolitic metabolism, and is generally healthier. It is not clear whether it compromises performance in glycolytic activites (i.e. racing 400m-marathon; generally recognized as an advantage in ultras).

I'm on a vegan diet so I'm good.

Just eat everything in moderation, and don't move up to the marathon just because your 5K is slow.

Is running 4 miles per day bad for your health?

Ummmm....it depends on the person.

If you an obese smoker POUNDING THE PAVEMENT beet red in the face huffing and puffing, then yeah, that's not very healthy.

But if you're a natural born slow twitch ectomorph elve person gliding effortlessly over grass barely getting their heart rate over 65% max, then that is probably ok.

Science experts always gush on about how HEALTHY walking is. But the effort level of my running is the same effort level of a normal fat American's walking.

In the past ten to twelve years there has been a growing amount of research to show the links between excessive aerobic exercise and issues with the heart (orthopaedic issues are another story, but certainly not to be discounted if we are thinking about overall health).

These studies have been conducted and evaluated by cardiologists, many of who (like James O’Keefe) used to be avid exercisers themselves and due to their professional focus, certainly had no reasons to be discouraging exercise at any level, unless they had good reason, backed by evidence to do so. These cardiologists are not saying that SOME cardio shouldn’t be done, but they are starting to question, in growing numbers, how MUCH should be done for best long term health results.

Lets not forget, that the original source of the running boom, (due to his book “Aerobics”) Dr Kenneth Cooper, went on to question his own original advice and stated that if you were running over ( or the equivalent of another form of cardio) fifteen miles per week, then you were doing so for reasons other than health. This was after he started noticing health issues develop among avid and excessive aerobic exercisers.

Lets also consider that among centenarians and those that live to a long age in the blue zones, they never, when interviewed, state that they conducted excessive cardio training regimens. They are usually very active, but it’s at slower paces such as walking etc, they certainly didn’t pound the streets.

Yes, there have been studies that have been conflicting and which have shown an opposite result. But these are usually done/ evaluated by sports scientists, and not cardiologists. As such you have to wonder if there is a conflict of interest somewhere, if not question who is funding those studies. The cynic in me wonders how much money would be lost by the sport and exercise industry if people actually realised that a simple and minimal exercise program was all that was needed.

What is excessive aerobic exercise for a runner ?

25 mpw?

40 mpw?

100 mpw?

On a side note, it is way easier for a cyclist or a triathlete to over-exercise because they can train a lot more hours.

The only bad thing about running a lot is that it doubles your risk of atrial fibrillation.

It may also cause more coronary artery calcification, but in runners this seems not to be related to more cardiac events as it does in non-runners.

Most benefit of exercise comes with running 3 times per week for 45 minutes.

There is some health gained by running more, but with dimishing returns.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Association of high amounts of physical activity with mortality risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis - PubMed

PROSPERO CRD42017055727.

Link:pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31406017/

Results of a meta-analysis.

//thread

3 hours a week of cardio is plenty to get practically all the health benefit there is with minimal risk of injury or long term damage. If you find you have more than 3 hours/week to spend on cardio, spend it with your child and spouse, and if you don’t have those, spend it on acquiring them.

I'm curious how much is this due to the actual exercise, or if someone who runs that much thinks they can have a poor diet. I've always believe diet is more important than exercise in overall health, although both are factors.

Also, there are other studies show acute exercise having a worse effect on men than women.

Everything is bad for your health. You're going to die one of these days. I hope I die with a happy ending.