REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU EXERCISE WAS BAD FOR YOU!
by Hazed
Endurance training may make you super-fit – but it could also make it more likely that you’ll need a pacemaker. That’s the warning from scientists at the British Heart Foundation.
They found that when mice exercise it triggers molecular changes in the part of the heart responsible for its natural beating rhythm. It suggests that the heart’s built-in pacemaker changes in response to training. The endurance exercise undertaken by the mice led to a decrease in a protein called HCN4, which is an important pacemaker protein. The decrease led to the mice having a low heart rate.
This matches observations of elite athletes, who often have low resting heart rates and are also more likely to have arrhythmias – disturbances of the heart rhythms – especially as they get older.
But this shouldn’t be taken as a reason to stop exercising, the experts say – the benefits still outweigh the risks.
