Forums >General Running>Micah True autopsy information
barefootin'
Bill Wagnon / stl
"A thickening and scarring of cardiac tissue is the result of the body’s inability to keep up with prolonged and excessive stress demands – essentially it’s in constant repair mode, and losing."
So... when runners die from enlarged hearts, it's a kind of invisible overtraining? I'd been under the impression (from e.g. Shay's case) that this was the result of a pre-existing genetic or developmental defect.
I can assure you one thing – dying from a heart attack due to prolonged, chronic structural changes in your heart is far from natural. A thickening and scarring of cardiac tissue is the result of the body’s inability to keep up with prolonged and excessive stress demands – essentially it’s in constant repair mode, and losing. Shay had this process occurring in his heart (fibrosis) and True in his arteries (arteriosclerosis). These “osis” conditions are due to free radical damage, inflammation (even temporary, but frequent), and hormonal and metabolic problems that occur from training too hard, lack of rest, improper diet, and other lifestyle factors
Makes me take pause ...
Long dead ... But my stench lingers !
Feeling the growl again
Very thought-provoking.
So I wonder...should serious endurance athletes have ultrasounds or MRIs done to check for this? Is there an age at which this makes sense? While enlargement of the heart is normal in endurance athletes, I would think that the pathological thickening of the left ventricle with dilation of the chamber is not....that would reduce stroke volume, not increase it as is the goal of most training.
The left ventricular dilation should be evident on an ultrasound, I would think.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
Wouldn't an ECG show it too? I thought that was the benchmark for heart abnormalities, like arrhythmias.
I wonder what "improper diet and other lifestyle factors" are as it relates to this particular issue. We all have our vices, etc. but for example I can't imagine what Micah True may have had in these areas that would make him more of a risk then the general population.
mta: it sort of just sounds like code for "we don't know what the hell causes it".
I just sent these questions to a cardiologist I know who has worked on running studies before. Hopefully he will have time to look at it.
Maybe not eating enough or food with enough nutrients to help the heart repair and recover. Run all day on a bottle of water and a bad of corn.
Spaniel - It will be interesting ~ I always considered my heart as the strongest muscle and if I were damaging anything running a gazillion slow miles it was my joints.
I wonder what "improper diet and other lifestyle factors" are as it relates to this particular issue. We all have our vices, etc. but for example I can't imagine what Micah True may have had in these areas that would make him more of a risk then the general population. mta: it sort of just sounds like code for "we don't know what the hell causes it".
I think it is time to retire.
Since my heart is likely banged up ~ Maybe its time to get balance in my organs and go after my liver. Heh ... I can obsess about anything.
I hope you're kidding. These results are meaningless by themselves -- in fact, they're worse than meaningless because they encourage generalizations based on individual cases.
The only way to draw useful conclusions is to look at large-scale, peer-reviewed studies. A sample of one is still a sample of one even if it's Micah True.
Not kidding, but also not specifically about this story either.
My body is all banged up from other stuff.
My kidneys are pissed off.
(joke. joke.)
I'm by no means a cardiologist, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. No really, I just took a 2 credit Advanced Cardiology class from the U of MN Medical school, here are some bullets of information from my notes and from the text. Most of the information is credited to Arthur H.L. From, MD. Basically, Dopplebock is probably right.: running all day with a bottle of water and a bag of corn.
-A chronic mechanical overload... often results in some degree of Left Ventricular dilation (aka- running for 6 hours a day)
-The Heart is an omnivore, it generally does not discriminate its source of fuel, it uses whatever is most readily available.
Unless:
-Impact of Fasting or Starvation on Heart metabolism: heart and skeletal muscle substantially decrease their rates of glucose consumption and increase consumption of fatty acids and ketone bodies.
-In an hypertrophied (enlarged) heart, the heart muscle prefers glucose over FFA and ketones to repair itself.
I'm sure the corn provided very little glucose for his enlarged heart to work as preferred during his long runs, so it simply "ate itself" while running for 6 hours every day. But to make up for basically eating itself during his rest times, his heart remodeled with more muscle tissue. It turned into an oscillating feedback loop. And more muscle tissue results in an enlarged heart and lower cardiac output, etc. Effectively he ran himself to death.
It turned into an oscillating feedback loop.
I thought this was an odd statement coming from a medical student but your profile explains it all.