Is too much running unhealthy?

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Replies

  • AglaeaC
    AglaeaC Posts: 1,974 Member
    edited February 2015
    FoCoAlphaNerd wrote: »
    AglaeaC wrote: »
    FoCoAlphaNerd wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    FoCoAlphaNerd wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    ThickMcRunFast wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    FoCoAlphaNerd wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    glevinso wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Oh...this again

    What do you mean?

    Meaning this stupidity pops up every year or so around this time.

    This study was published this month, what stupidity do you mean?

    I think he meant studies like this. Exercise research can be a bit of an echo chamber. Studies like this have been performed over and over again, many of them coming to the exact opposite conclusion. The problem being "study shows, lots of exercise is good for you" doesn't play as well on the Today Show.

    Do you have links to any of the studies showing that distance running is beneficial to health?

    Runners have the lowest risk of arthritis of all studied athletes:
    http://www.bmj.com/content/308/6923/231.full

    long distance runners have a lower rate of OA than the general population:
    http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(08)00353-X/abstract

    lower disability and mortality among long distance runners:
    http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=770349

    That last study is interesting, though I wish it said how much running since in the article I posted it is specific to speed and time.

    Wait, are just reading the abstracts and not using library or college access to get to the full studies?

    Yes.

    Oh . . . *wanders off to go for a run*

    Lol. Don't be too disappointed, at least PubMed has been mentioned in the thread. (Well, the spirit of it anyway.)

    That would be much more uplifting if I wasn't the one who suggested it. I want a basic class in high school called "here's how to tell if a study is nonsense, and here are locations you can find legit ones." Maybe not the world's most catchy title, but we'll throw a "101" after it, make it mandatory, and soon threads like these will be much less painful.

    I'd settle with university graduates at this point rather than high-school students.
  • Huppdiwupp
    Huppdiwupp Posts: 50 Member
    I have no idea whether running will prolong my life (I could get run over by a truck on a training run tomorrow), but it has definitely made my life a lot happier.
  • Khukhullatus
    Khukhullatus Posts: 361 Member
    AglaeaC wrote: »
    wabmester wrote: »
    Who has time to determine if any given study is bogus? That's why I only pay attention to metastudies, and my ears only really perk up when there's a viable mechanism of action proposed.

    Metastudies take time (research studies), and in the meantime we shouldn't think at all but trust blindly?

    They also suffer from the exact same set of biases as do the individual studies. I've seen more than one meta that basically just stacked up crappy studies hoping that enough of them would offset their lack of diligence.

    We can't possibly all read everything, and it would be a mistake to read nothing, but a well informed person can look into the things that are important to them and separate at least some wheat and chaff.

    A proposed mechanism of action is spectacular. It's an excellent piece of added evidence when an idea is being vetted, but almost without exception epidemiological studies begin with simple observation long before that stage. A lot of experimental studies even proceed long before a mechanism of action is proposed. It's not really the best idea to ignore an idea until a mechanism is proposed. Heck, a huge chunk of modern genetics and an obscene percentage of modern neurology are still in the "huh . . . well I'll be damned" stage of their development. To say nothing of fields like physics . . .
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    _Zardoz_ wrote: »
    Ahh it's the time of year to start telling us runners we're going to drop dead if we run too much. This is a great piece that explains that the conclusions people are drawing from this study are well flawed at best

    http://www.runnersworld.com/health/will-running-too-much-kill-you

    Are you sure this is the same study? The study the article references was published today, this link you provided almost a year ago.

    OP, can you provide a link to the "new" study?
  • AglaeaC
    AglaeaC Posts: 1,974 Member
    edited February 2015
    FoCoAlphaNerd wrote: »
    AglaeaC wrote: »
    wabmester wrote: »
    Who has time to determine if any given study is bogus? That's why I only pay attention to metastudies, and my ears only really perk up when there's a viable mechanism of action proposed.

    Metastudies take time (research studies), and in the meantime we shouldn't think at all but trust blindly?

    They also suffer from the exact same set of biases as do the individual studies. I've seen more than one meta that basically just stacked up crappy studies hoping that enough of them would offset their lack of diligence.

    We can't possibly all read everything, and it would be a mistake to read nothing, but a well informed person can look into the things that are important to them and separate at least some wheat and chaff.

    A proposed mechanism of action is spectacular. It's an excellent piece of added evidence when an idea is being vetted, but almost without exception epidemiological studies begin with simple observation long before that stage. A lot of experimental studies even proceed long before a mechanism of action is proposed. It's not really the best idea to ignore an idea until a mechanism is proposed. Heck, a huge chunk of modern genetics and an obscene percentage of modern neurology are still in the "huh . . . well I'll be damned" stage of their development. To say nothing of fields like physics . . .

    Agreed. I think the biggest mistake people make, be they researchers or not, is to view information as static somehow. All the small studies also act like tiny dots pushed into the shared pool of information, out of which coincidences etc. can cause knowledge (lines connecting said dots) to evolve. What bugs me about a platform such as TED is that while it could be a channel between laymen and experts, it isn't used at all to its potential.
  • Huppdiwupp
    Huppdiwupp Posts: 50 Member
    I do believe that there will be some level beyond which running more can be detrimental - the phrase that "too much" running may be unhealthy is almost a tautology.

    I am not so convinced that, as an amateur running maybe 3500 km per year, I am anywhere near that level. I will admit that I am somewhat addicted to exercise, and that includes running - and I think that's true for many people who run as much as I do.

    However, I also believe that, had I not discovered running early in my twenties, I would have probably found some other outlet, be that video games, drinking, or overeating. Out of all the options, I think sports is the least harmful. It may well be that for people who exercise 10+ hours per week, exercise is not a cause of a problem that needs to be fixed, but simply points to a somewhat addictive mentality that may be correlated with other, more unhealthy aspects of their lifestyles.
  • AglaeaC
    AglaeaC Posts: 1,974 Member
    Huppdiwupp wrote: »
    I have no idea whether running will prolong my life (I could get run over by a truck on a training run tomorrow), but it has definitely made my life a lot happier.

    While WHO's definition of health is a brave attempt at bringing in quality of life into the mix, I always think when hearing of various sporting accidents gone bad that the people at least died when doing something they loved. How can anything beat that?
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    EvgeniZyntx wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    _Zardoz_ wrote: »
    Ahh it's the time of year to start telling us runners we're going to drop dead if we run too much. This is a great piece that explains that the conclusions people are drawing from this study are well flawed at best

    http://www.runnersworld.com/health/will-running-too-much-kill-you

    Are you sure this is the same study? The study the article references was published today, this link you provided almost a year ago.

    OP, can you provide a link to the "new" study?

    It's a long term study. The article was just published (link in OP) and contains a link to the JACC publication of the study. But here it is, if you don't want to follow that link.
    http://content.onlinejacc.org/article.aspx?articleID=2108914
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