– How do some of the most in-shape athletes in the world suddenly suffer from traumatic heart issues, even with regular testing?
In: Biology
Athletes definitely have much lower rates of heart disease then the general population, but there are still a few things that affect them.
A strenuous lifestyle and massive gains in muscle mass can cause hypertension and put unexpected strain on the heart, and of course there are always genetic issues and freak occurrences that can’t be explained.
The bigger issue is that the overwhelming proportion of our clinical knowledge on heart disease comes from the average public and people in poor health, so problems in these athletes may be misdiagnosed.
A good example of this: if they were judged by the same scale as the general public most of these athletes would be considered overweight or obese, which is obviously not the case so physicians are in the dark when diagnosing related problems.
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