6 Comments

Nice discussion and I agree with most of your comments.

I would point out that almost all information in this area comes from observational studies and suffers therefore from inability to account for residual confounding. For example, those who choose to be sedentary differ in many other health-related , lifestyle choices from those who choose to do the recommended 150 minutes of cardio exercise weekly.

You briefly mentioned coronary artery calcium and its increased prevalence in those who exercise a huge amount. I've seen this in many patients who engage in ultra endurance activities and it is currently a source of controversy in the medical literature.

This article (https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.028750) provides a reasonable discussion and highlights the uncertainty. It advocates not performing CAC for most individuals but I disagree with that recommendation .

Dr. Pearson

Expand full comment
Feb 22, 2023Liked by Dr Paddy Barrett

Super article, thank you! I had to look up what monotonic means. You all did too, admit it! 😀

Was the mortality risk in the last graph all-cause-mortality? I wonder if extreme exercisers get hit by more cars since they're out running on the roads more? A lot of the runners here seem to think that traffic rules don't apply to them.

Expand full comment
Feb 22, 2023Liked by Dr Paddy Barrett

Thank you for this ! I would also add that most people are also not very good at estimating their effort (RPE) … I always wear a heart rate monitor and would definitely recommend one to regular exercisers

Expand full comment