Competitive sports and the heart: benefit or risk?

BACKGROUND: Controversy surrounds the cardiac effects of competitive sports and the athlete's heart. In this review, we present and discuss the main cardiological findings in competitive athletes.

METHOD: Selective review of pertinent literature retrieved by a search with the keywords "athlete's heart," "ECG," "echocardiography," "endurance exercise," "longevity," and others.

RESULTS: Regular exercise leads to functional and structural adaptations that improve cardiac function. Athlete's heart, which develops rarely, is a typical finding in endurance athletes. This condition is characterized by physiological, harmonically eccentric hypertrophy of all cardiac chambers. The athlete's ECG can be used to distinguish physiological, training-related changes from pathological training-unrelated changes. The athlete's heart function is normal at rest and increases appropriately during exercise. The cardiac markers troponin and B-type natriuretic peptide are within the normal range in healthy athletes at rest, but can temporarily be mildly elevated after exhausting endurance-exercise, without evidence of myocardial damage. The epidemiological data suggest that participation in competitive sports increases life expectancy.

CONCLUSION: Competitive exercise does not induce cardiac damage in individuals with healthy hearts, but does induce physiological functional and structural cardiac adaptations which have positive effects on life expectancy.