Incidence of high blood pressure and irregular heartbeats, with about 7.5 percent of the runners reporting one of those problems. The ultra-runners had a low, although not nonexistent,

The results, which were published last week in PLoS One, were telling. Then they compared the ultra-runners’ aggregate answers with comparable health statistics for average, more sedentary adults, while also comparing the training and injury-related data with similar informationĪbout recreational runners, like myself, who are not running 50- or 100-mile races on the weekend. They also asked about their race histories, times, training regimens and any recent injuries and illnesses. Runners and asked them probing and almost impolite questions about the past and current states of their bones, hearts, blood pressures, prostates, breasts, skin, lungs, moods, bowels, eyes, waistlines, livers and Hoping to better understand what happens to an ultra-endurance athlete’s body, researchers at Stanford University and the University of California, Davis recently contacted more than 1,200 experienced ultra-marathon Few studies have examined the more general health implications - the benefits as well as the risks - of training for and running more miles in a day than many of us complete in a month. In recent years, the health effects of increasing inactivity have received plenty of scientific and media scrutiny.īut the potential health effects of relatively gargantuan levels of physical activity have received less attention, and much of the science that does exist focuses on the potential dangers of over-exercise for the Some different health concerns than most of us might expect, suggesting that some beliefs about how much activity the human body can manage, especially in middle age, may be too narrow. But a new study of these racers, who compete in events longer than marathons, joins other recent science in finding that they also tend to be older and have

Ultra-runners are different from you and me. Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

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