We have always thought that the more you run the better shape you will be in, and hence the healthier you are. But new evidence is claiming that the benefits of too much exercise decrease after a certain point. The idea of “exercise overdose” seems to be becoming more widely accepted among many sports physicians. Paul Thompson a sports medicine specialist and chief of cardiology at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut said:

The lesson I’ve learned from 40 years of cardiology is that when there’s this much smoke, there’s often some fire.

The health concerns of endurance athletes has been increasing, with research showing a link between endurance athletes and enlarged aortic roots. Research has shown that the mortality benefits of running more than 48 kilometers a week may decrease. John Mandrola, cardiac electrophysiologist said:

Heart disease comes from inflammation and if you’re constantly, chronically inflaming yourself, never letting your body heal, why wouldn’t there be a relationship between over exercise and heart disease?

Whether this research warrants a warning is yet to be seen. With contradictory research suggesting quite the opposite, and the number of Americans not exercising at all out weighing those who do extreme exercise, Mandrola added:

I don’t want anyone to read that exercise can be bad for you. Some folks do tons of exercise and are protected. Some folks probably have some individual susceptibility to it. I’m a big believer in short intervals of high intensity.

Some warnings seem to be louder than others, James O’Keefe sports cardiologist and former elite triathlete said in a paper:

Long-term excessive endurance exercise may induce pathological structural remodeling of the heart and large arteries.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]