Extreme-volume exercise tied to increased coronary artery calcification in males \ stacker news ~HealthAndFitness

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Extreme-volume exercise tied to increased coronary artery calcification in males medicalxpress.com/news/2025-05-high-volume-coronary-artery-calcification.html

229 sats \ 4 comments \ @k00b 15 Jun HealthAndFitness

Ahmed Abdelaziz, M.D., from the Medical Research Group of Egypt at the Negida Academy in Arlington, Massachusetts, and colleagues evaluated the impact of endurance exercise on coronary atherosclerosis assessed by cardiac computed tomography in athletes and nonathletes. The analysis included data from nine observational studies (61,150 participants).

The researchers found that male athletes with an exercise volume of >3,000 MET-minutes/week showed higher mean coronary artery calcification (CAC) scores than nonathlete males (mean difference = 31.62). No difference in CAC was found for male athletes with 1,500 to 3,000 MET-minutes/week or female athletes with an exercise volume of 1,500 MET-minutes/week or greater. There were significant sex-specific differences for the association between exercise volume and calcified plaque number and volume by coronary computed tomography angiography.

full analysis: https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacadv.2025.101786

I'm surprised this only affects men. Evolutionarily, you'd think men would be better adapted to endurance exercise. 3000 MET-minutes is extreme though, so I'm not sure this to mean "don't run."

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50 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 16 Jun

I've gotten to know 2 guys in the past 6 months, both older (60's) and extreme exercisers. Think marathons, Ironman, getting up at 5 every day to run long distances.

But that's all in the past. BOTH of them seem to have really aged very quickly.

This is a pattern that I'm noticing. Extreme exercise does not seem to be linked to better health, in older age.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 15 Jun

None of us are adapted to modern amounts of arterial plaques. Evolution hasn't gotten to work on this yet.

I'd wager the difference between men and women comes down to selection bias on some combination of diet and workout habits, more than something physiological.