Marathon May Put Heart at Risk

OK, it’s not news, but it is timely, and timeliness was good enough for the LA Times, so it’s good enough for Geezer. The paper reports on two recent studies that suggest that running a marathon can damage your heart.  One study, published in November in the journal Circulation, found elevated levels of a protein called troponin in a
group of runners 20 minutes after finishing the Boston Marathon. When
heart muscle cells die or are damaged, their membranes leak, and
troponin is one of the things that spills out. Reseachers found that 40 percent of the runners had levels high enough
to suggest heart damage. Runners who had trained 35 miles or fewer each
week produced more troponin than those who ran more than 45 miles a
week. Meanwhile, on the Left Coast, the Times reports that Stanford University School of Medicine researchers also
found high troponin levels in a quarter of the 48 runners they tested
after the Silicon Valley Marathon in October.  The paper reports that none
of the runners had chest pains or other medical problems. Training
didn’t seem to affect how much troponin they released. The next day,
their troponin levels were back to normal. Read more in the LA Times.