Older male athletes may face increased risk of serious heart problems during exercise

Veteran male athletes may face higher heart risk during exercise if they have existing heart scarring, new research suggests.

The study found that male endurance athletes aged over 50 were more likely to experience abnormal heart rhythms during training if scarring was present.

Nine in 10 sudden cardiac deaths during sport occur in older male athletes.

Researchers at the University of Leeds tracked 106 healthy male endurance athletes aged over 50 who had been doing more than 10 hours of running or cycling weekly for at least 15 years.

They matched training data from wearables with implantable loop recorders to align heart rhythms with activity.

Over two years, about one in four participants experienced ventricular tachycardia, a fast, abnormal rhythm arising from the heart’s lower chambers, during or just after exercising.

Three quarters of those who had these episodes had heart scarring. There were three sustained episodes during exercise, all in athletes with scarring.

Scarring may be caused by heart attacks, disease or cumulative exertion from years of high-intensity exercise.

Dr Wasim Javed, research fellow at the University of Leeds and lead author, said: “Our study shows that exercise was only associated with a risk of developing abnormal heart rhythms in those who were already high risk due to heart scarring.

“Athletes who developed abnormal heart rhythms were not exercising more or harder than athletes without abnormal heart rhythms.

“This suggests that exercise itself is not the cause, but could act as a trigger for dangerous heart rhythms in those athletes already with an underlying heart issue.”

“Exercise is safe and has immense benefits – but athletes in this group should have regular health checks to make sure they stay healthy.”

The researchers said their findings support the use of wearable technology for athletes who want to monitor their heart rate for unusual activity.