Aaron Baggish, MD, Is Too Much Endurance Exercise Bad for your Heart

[JimInNashville]

As a retired 80 year old scientist and former competitive rower, with over 34, 000 citations, let me say that I found this talk to be absolutely superb, brilliant! I feel like I learned a tremendous amount from this.l Thank you so much, Dr. Baggish!

[donross]

I am a 79 year old (in 2 weeks) retired ER physician and I am a rabid advocate of the health benefits of cycling. It truly works miracles and as an example I can still do 4 minute 19 second on the USAA Cycling 5 minute TT (a 4% average upgrade at 6300 foot elevation in Colorado Springs). I weigh low 170 pounds. I can't believe how good I still feel thanks to cycling BUT one area doctors never discuss (and this is huge) is alcohol and the heart. Alcohol is a potent cardiomyotoxin (meaning it is toxic to the heart muscle and causes heart muscle inflammation) but this is dose related. When I was in training I had a 23 year old die from his excessive alcohol intake causing congestive heart failure. In the ER I would see young people come in with an arrhythmia over the holidays due to excessive alcohol (thus the title "Holiday Heart"). As one gets older the risk of Atrial Fibrillation goes up logarithmically and AF can be exercise induced. AF causation is multifactorial and these precipitators make it much more likely during a ride: dehydration, low potassium, hypothermia (even drinking a smoothie can bring it on!), lack of sleep, too much caffeine, thyroid excess, and others. But no one ever seems to bring up the subject of excessive alcohol prior and the risk of AF. I love a nice red wine and this leaves me conflicted but I have found that half a bottle 2-3 days a week seems to not precipitate AF so one does not need to totally do without. My take home message to all us geriatric cycling advocates is keep all those precipitators to a minimum including alcohol and you can continue to partake of the Fountain of Youth and not need what most doctors would recommend: blood thinners or cardiac ablation!
Also, watch your heart monitor (Garmin or whatever) like a hawk and when your rate starts getting in the upper ranges just back off to keep it out of trouble. Very high rate from exertion can bring on AF. AND be sure you are not overweight because any fatty tissue on your body gives off inflammatory cytokines (signaling molecules) which leave you in a chronically inflammed state prone to AF (and cancer).
I will add that American physicians are so terrified of lawyers that they make recommendations which are to the serious detriment of their patients.
Today I rode 48 miles and climbed 5000 feet and it felt wonderful.

[johnnielee]

I watched this video just now. Will be 80 yr old in 2 weeks. Retired primary care physician in HK. Recently I involve myself in intensive internet searching and reading/studying re: the subjects on endothelial glycocalyx (initially inspired by ESL - Endothelial Surface Layer, and non-osmotic sodium storage in skin). I am not an investigational scientist/academician. I submit that the following SPECULATION might explain, at least in part, the harm caused by "too much" of exercise.
I am quite happy with my 22 minutes per day low-to-median intensity jogging fairly consistently (154 minutes/week) - as mentioned in the video at about 6-minute-time. The Glycocalyx is endothelia/vessel protective. In basal/healthy conditions, after 22 minutes' exercise, there would be shedding of the glycocalyx, (proteoglycans/glycoproteins) due to oxidative stress (hopefully my vit C might help as an antioxidant) and others. Regeneration of the glycocalyx in the next 23 hours 38 minutes is assumed to be enough. If one jogs "too much" (duration- and intensity-wise), the body does not have enough time/capability to regenerate all the glycocalyx lost. Remember that the glycocalyx is protective. The rest is self-explanatory. I am certain that there are other factors involved. Recently, I only need to get up once to visit the washroom from 2-3 times (LUTs). Two years ago I took alpha-1 blocker but got occasional extra systoles/with no syncope. Since then, not taking anything except glucosamine OTC and vit C OTC. Lastly thank a million to those medical scientists I came across in the net.

[gotaylor]

Thanks, can dr Aaron Baggish update this after 5 years.

[youvev]

Astonishing to see the relatively low number of views. This is a great talk!

[aethylwulfeiii]

When you watch this video when you are getting 20 hours a week….. and they give you the guidelines for an hour a week of exercise.

[davidpowell]

Circa 23:00 Runners often "carbohydrate load" before a race which might lead to loading up the porta potty and might not be all that good for health. Might even be a sort of abuse of the body (although I don't think runners should skimp on nutrition)

[jp]

I’m 66yo, not sure I qualify as an “endurance athlete”, zone 2 trail run 6k/day/365 added CrossFit 3d/week (for BD and sarcopenia) plant based, I keep apoB<45 (ldlc low 30’s) [baby statin] in the hope of keeping arteries clear.. ct.a showed cac:0, “no vessel disease”. I am worried about afib, “slightly” dilated LA .. but oh well, I’ll keep'it “slow” … for me .. exercise upregulates BDNF / klotho …

[thedreamdennis]

Sir I would love for you guys to do a study on UFC Fighters of all ages and backgrounds of health maybe this could help you, they are hard core endurance athletes .ultimate fighting championship fighting MMA sport

[rubengonzalez]

What have you learned about covid 19 and athletes?, my name is Ruben Gonzalez living in Utah since 2002 after the Olympics. I was a marathon runner/triathlete. I did bodybuilding in my 30's for 7 yrs, got into running my first marathon at 40. Did my first spint triathlon at 42 and graduated to my first Ironman at 46. I did 2 more Ironman then got hit by a Suburban and took a 8yr lay off. While helping a friend to get ready for an Ironman triathlon I got the bug again and did in 2017, 2yrs later I finished my last in Kentucky 2019. Then covid hit, in October 2019 I got covid, after getting clear of that I got phenomenal, shortly after that I have heart failure, a d diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. My question to you is was this brought into my life from to much exercise or covid? My cardiologist thinks it from Covid. I am 63 yrs old. Help me if you can. Thank you Ruben Gonzalez

[BradLydiaP]

can someone give me the short and tall of this in about a paragraph or so please... 28 minutes long and i can't be bothered to watch it all !!!

[TammyDenseDdank]

Its probably the same as if the machine is not running at a optimal efficiency and mechanical integrity. Then, putting it under heavy load will only make it worse.

[thedreamdennis]

And maybe the pro CrossFit athletes would also be a good study

[dann]

Never exercising again! Dear God its so scary, scarring and ischemia and what not! I'm better off laying on my couch 😂

[ihbarddx]

Exercise doesn't actually pass the tests you put it to. Rather, it fails pretty much all them, but with plausible explanations. There are also things like AFIB and stenosis, where you actually concede. Are the data all in? No. Certainly eight crazy people aren't going to take us far, and the kinds of controlled experiments required for proof can probably never be done. This is just to point out that you are an apologist for exercise, and we viewers must take that bias into account.

[TBCProductions]

Dude, why are you talking so fast? It's too much information as a passive listener. Slow down, take a deep breath and let the listener write things down. Not criticizing your content, just delivery.

[nikitaw]

Mass vaccination, what differences are u seeing? Are u allowed to talk about it openly?

[RanjeetSingh-eug]

Human body is not designed for hard work human is known because of brain so physical excercise is for animals