Cardiac Arrests and Long Distance Running: New Study

New Study: Heart Risk ‘Low’ in Distance Races

Posted from: Runners World

"The New England Journal of Medicine has just published the biggest and most informative medical research yet on cardiac arrests and deaths in marathons (and half-marathons). It's titled "Cardiac Arrests during Long-Distance Running Races," and it appears in the Jan. 12, 2012, edition of the historic medical journal. The article, from the RACER study (Race Associated Cardiac Arrest Registry), concludes: “Long distance running races are associated with low overall risk of cardiac arrest and sudden death.” 

This is the first major study of runner-cardiac-arrests to include half-marathon races along with marathon races. The rate of cardiac arrests in marathons was found to be roughly four times that in half marathons. There were 40 cardiac arrests among slightly fewer than 4 million marathon runners, and 19 among slightly fewer than 7 million half marathoners.  The researchers believe that the marathon distance probably fatigues the heart more. "Longer races involve more physiological stress and thus a higher likelihood of precipitating an adverse event," they wrote.

The risk of having a heart attack in a marathon is 1.01 per 100,000 participants, and the death risk is .63/100,000. This means big marathons might expect to see one heart attack for every 99,000 runners, and one death for every 158,000 runners. The highest-risk group, men in marathons, has a cardiac-arrest incidence of 1.41/100,000, or one per 70,900 runners. Men have about a five-times higher risk than women for both heart attacks and death."

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