Is There a Dark Side?
One of my favorite movies when I was young was the original Star Wars. A part of that movie that has stayed with me over the years is the eerie scene involving the heavy and raspy breathing of Darth Vader, who represented the dark side.
Running provides many physical and mental health benefits, but is there a dark side to running? Some believe that there is. Occasionally a tragedy occurs in the sport of running. Runners that appear to be fit and healthy collapse and die during their race or training run. During the 2006 Los Angeles Marathon two men died after suffering a heart attack. One runner suffered a heart attack 3 miles into the race while the other collapsed at mile 21. A third runner had a heart attack at the start of the race but survived.
Sudden death is not a common occurrence in running, even during a race as grueling and strenuous as the marathon. It is even rarer to see multiple deaths, such as the unfortunate events during the 2006 Los Angeles Marathon, but sudden deaths do occur. Studies vary in data concerning the number of sudden deaths among runners. One report said that about 7 of every 100,000 runners will die suddenly. Another recent study determined that sudden death associated with moderate to vigorous exercise was very low at 1 per 36.5 million hours of exercise. In 2005, researchers conducted a study of 215,413 runners that competed in the Marine Corps and Twin Cities Marathons over a 30 year period . The researchers found that only 4 sudden deaths occurred due to unsuspected heart disease. That is a very low .002% which is much lower than risks of sudden death among non-runners. Regardless of which numbers you choose to believe, the incidence of sudden death among runners is rare.
Sudden death during exercise is a relatively rare occurrence, but unfortunately it does happen. If running and exercise improves your health and extends your life, why do these tragedies happen? Does running increase the chances of sudden death? As with most complex questions, the answer is partly yes and partly no.
This question became a full blown controversy in the early 1980’s with the death of running author Jim Fixx. Fixx became famous as the writer of the international best selling book “The Complete Book of Running”. This was one of the first books to introduce the joys and benefits of running to the general population and was credited for helping fuel the running boom of the 1980’s. Fixx died of a heart attack while running and immediately the blame for his sudden death fell upon running and vigorous exercise.
The most common cause of death in today’s society is coronary artery disease. Almost every investigation agrees; nearly all runners that die suddenly during exercise already had advanced cardiovascular disease. None of these diseases are caused by running. It has been proven time and time again that running and other forms of exercise help prevent heart disease. A runner with heart disease is more like to suffer from a fatal heart attack when exercising than when at rest. This makes sense because the strain on the heart is obviously greater during strenuous exercise. However, because of the health benefits of exercise, if those same runners were to avoid exercise, their risk of sudden death at all times would rise, not fall.
The death of Jim Fixx is a perfect example of this. Fixx already had heart disease at the time of his death. He was a former smoker and had a family history of heart disease. His father had died of a heart attack at age 43. Fixx also had elevated blood cholesterol. Three of his coronary arteries were blocked, one at 95%, one at 85% and one at 50%. He died at age 53, outliving his father by 10 years. Running did not kill Jim Fixx. On the contrary, it almost certainly allowed him to live a longer, happier and more productive life.
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