d****r
发帖数: 2912 | 1 准备跟踪20年。
http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2014/january/ultra.html
Study provides glimpse into health of ultramarathon runners
BY MOLLY SHARLACH
Pete Aylwarddescription of photo
Researchers have recently published the baseline findings of a longitudinal
study on the health of ultrarunners. Above, runners participate in a 100-
kilometer ultramarathon in Britain.
For some runners, a marathon is not enough.
Participation in so-called ultramarathons — defined as any distance beyond
the standard 26.2-mile marathon — has grown exponentially in recent years.
The number of runners who finished ultra-length races in North America
increased from 15,500 in 1998 to 63,530 in 2012, according to UltraRunning
Magazine. Despite its popularity, however, little is known about the health
effects of this intense form of exercise.
To learn more about the health of ultrarunners, Eswar Krishnan, MD,
assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of
Medicine, teamed up with Martin Hoffman, MD, a professor of physical
medicine and rehabilitation at UC-Davis and an avid ultrarunner. In November
2011 they launched the Ultrarunners Longitudinal Tracking Study. Baseline
findings of the study were published Jan. 8 in PLOS ONE.
More than 1,200 ultrarunners answered a web-based questionnaire about the
competitions they entered and their training regimens, general health and
running-related injuries over the previous 12 months. The researchers plan
to follow this cohort of runners for 20 years.
Krishnan, a clinical epidemiologist, believes that studying the effects of
extreme exercise could have broader applicability. “It will help us to
understand how much exercise is optimal, how much recreational activity is
appropriate and beneficial, and if there is a reason not to push your body
beyond a certain point,” he said.
Healthy runners
Not unexpectedly, baseline statistics indicate that ultrarunners are
healthier than the overall U.S. population. During the previous year, study
participants missed an average of just two days of work or school because of
illness or injury, compared with four days for the general population. Most
of their visits to health-care professionals, about 64 percent, were for
exercise-related injuries, not for diseases that would indicate chronic
deterioration.
Eswar Krishnan
More than three-quarters of the ultrarunners reported an exercise-related
injury in the prior year, while 65 percent had lost at least one training
day to injury. Comparing the profiles of injured runners with those who had
avoided injury revealed an interesting trend: Injuries appeared to be more
common in younger, less experienced runners.
“It’s a bit like drivers. Young drivers are at higher risk of car crashes
than older people. So similarly, people who have recently started running
are much more likely to suffer injuries than veteran ultramarathoners,”
Krishnan said.
With the next questionnaire, to be sent in early 2014, Krishnan and Hoffman
hope to investigate whether particular knowledge or adaptations help to
protect more experienced runners from injury.
As in all runners, most injuries among study participants involved the knees
and other parts of the lower extremities. Notably, just 3.7 percent of
injured ultrarunners reported stress fractures, small cracks in bones that
can arise from repeated application of force over time. Stress fractures may
be less frequent in ultrarunners than in other runners; studies have shown
they make up 5 to 16 percent of all injuries in runners.
Stress fractures in the feet
However, stress fractures in the foot appear to be especially common in this
group, accounting for 48 percent of all reported stress fractures. Hoffman
and Krishnan speculate that running on uneven terrain may be the reason why.
Another striking, yet anticipated, finding was a high incidence of asthma
and allergies. While only 7 to 8 percent of the overall U.S. population has
each of these conditions, 11 percent of ultrarunners reported asthma, and 25
percent reported allergies. The study authors believe that allergies may
develop simply as a response to spending more time outdoors, leading to more
contact with pollen and other allergens. Krishnan expects that, as in
marathon runners, most of the asthma in the study participants is related to
allergies, but he plans to follow up on this in subsequent questionnaires.
Other valuable baseline findings from the study include statistics on
hospitalizations after competitive ultramarathon events. Five percent of
participants had been hospitalized after a competitive event in the past
year, and more than half of these incidents were reportedly due to
dehydration, electrolyte disturbance or heat exhaustion. About 20 percent
were for fracture or dislocation injuries. Krishnan hopes these findings can
help improve the education of runners and medical personnel about these
dangers, but cautioned that falls during ultramarathons cannot be fully
prevented.
The psychological profiles of ultrarunners are of particular interest to the
researchers and will be a focus of the upcoming questionnaire. Krishnan and
Hoffman are collaborating with several sports psychologists to study what
drives these runners to such an extreme level of competition. “
Understanding what motivates ultrarunners could be useful for encouraging
others to meet minimum levels of exercise to enhance health,” Hoffman said.
The study was supported by Veterans Affairs Northern California Health Care
System and the Western States Endurance Run Foundation.
Information about Stanford’s Department of Medicine, where Krishnan is
based, is available at http://medicine.stanford.edu. | R*****s
发帖数: 41236 | 2 Andy MM刚贴了一个教程，俺已经从ultra队伍半退休了，太损肌肉了.... | T*******a
发帖数: 23033 | 3 我草，除了去年跑，十几年没看医生，当然体检除外。 | d****r
发帖数: 2912 | 4 我就是看到那个课，顺便到斯坦福主页上目娄了一眼，就瞧见了那个研究项目。
我两三个月不练举重，力量狂跌百分之四十。惨。。。
【在 R*****s 的大作中提到】
: Andy MM刚贴了一个教程，俺已经从ultra队伍半退休了，太损肌肉了....
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