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Strenuous Exercise and Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes

  • Coronary Heart Disease (S. Virani and S. Naderi, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current Atherosclerosis Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

This review summarizes several issues at the forefront of recent controversies involving the appropriate exercise dose including epidemiologic data describing mortality trends in those who engage in high levels of physical activity and recent observational data suggesting adverse cardiovascular outcomes among long-term endurance athletes.

Recent Findings

The benefits of habitual and moderate levels of exercise on cardiovascular disease outcomes in the general population have been well established. However, recent data have questioned whether higher doses of physical and athletic activity are associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes.

Summary

Specifically in regard to adverse cardiovascular outcomes, the evidence and limitations of the available data associating veteran endurance athletes with an increased risk of atrial fibrillation, exercise-induced arrhythmogenic cardiac remodeling, and accelerated coronary atherosclerosis will be discussed. This review will also provide a conceptual framework in the context of the clinical management of athletic patients and will highlight key areas of future research that may resolve many of these controversial issues.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cardiology, Emory Clinical Cardiovascular Research Institute, Emory University School of Medicine, 1462 Clifton Road, NE, Suite 502, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA

    Jonathan H. Kim

  2. Division of Cardiology, Cardiovascular Performance Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Aaron L. Baggish

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  1. Jonathan H. Kim
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  2. Aaron L. Baggish
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Correspondence to Jonathan H. Kim.

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Conflict of Interest

Jonathan H. Kim is supported by the National Institutes of Health (K23 HL128795).

Aaron L. Baggish is supported by the National Institutes of Health (RO1 DA029141, RO1 HL117037, RO1 HL125869). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Coronary Heart Disease

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Kim, J.H., Baggish, A.L. Strenuous Exercise and Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes. Curr Atheroscler Rep 19, 1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11883-017-0636-3

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