Thanks to the necessary versatility it demands from the body in terms of endurance, power and explosiveness, football is a complete sport. Its regular practice remodels the heart, both in terms of its weight and its physiognomy.
- Football remodels the heart, especially on the left ventricle.
- This remodeling is progressive throughout a career.
- Thanks to its heavier weight and its thicker wall than normal, the heart of footballers is more powerful and reactive than another.
Practicing regular physical activity is the basis for staying healthy for a long time. If this adage is true, there are nevertheless some parameters to take into account, to avoid overworking your body and especially your heart. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (USA) conducted a study to determine what were the ideal cardiac characteristics of elite athletes, both in men and in women. The results were published on December 2, 2020 in JAMA Cardiology.
A popular and versatile sport
To determine which sport could serve as a reference for all the others, the researchers looked at football. On the one hand, because it is the most popular sport in the world, but also for the versatility it requires (endurance, physical strength, explosiveness, etc..). The researchers analyzed the cardiovascular data of 122 female athletes and 116 male athletes, aged between 15 and 40 years old. None of them had findings or worrisome signs of heart muscle disease that would prevent them from competing.
The tests they were subjected to included both electrocardiograms, which assess the electrical activity of the heart, and echocardiograms (cardiac ultrasound), which show the structure of the heart. “Electrocardiograms meeting international criteria for abnormality were more common in female athletes, but none of these individuals showed signs of underlying abnormalities on their cardiac ultrasounds.says Timothy Churchill, a medical researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and lead author of the study. We also found that athletes of both sexes frequently exceeded normal values defined by the general population for a number of important measures, such as heart size, which likely reflects the adaptation of the athlete’s heart to their physical training. ”
A more powerful and responsive core
In the athletes observed, the researchers indicate that their hearts were remodeled by physical exercise, both in terms of their weight and their physiognomy. This is particularly the case in the left ventricle, where the wall has become much thicker, which allows it to receive and eject more blood into the general circulation. In comparison to other athletes, soccer players have smaller heart chambers than basketball or American football players, a finding not surprising given the associations between heart diameter and body size. Finally, the remodeling of the heart shows that the process is gradual and that it develops throughout the sports career.
The researchers hope that this study will provide clinicians with a benchmark that can be used when evaluating athletes to improve detection of possible cardiac symptoms. “This type of assessment is common and expected to become even more so as athletes return to competition in the context of Covid-19 exposure or infection, given concerns that have arisen about possible cardiac involvement.says Aaron Baggish, director of the Cardiovascular Performance Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. and co-lead author of the study. We hope our data can put athletes’ cardiac outcomes into context and help clinicians determine what is normal and what might suggest a possible underlying disease.”
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