Family Encyclopedia >> Sports

Running too much is not healthy

Running can have a good influence on your weight, your blood pressure and it can reduce stress. Just like everything that 'too' stands for, too much running is less healthy.

Bad news for avid runners
More is not always better, conclude researchers at the Cardiovascular Research Institute in Allentown. They examined data from 3,800 runners with an average age of 46 years. 70 percent walk more than 30 kilometers per week.

Shorten lifespan due to too much running
The study found that people who do not exercise and runners who go for long distances have a shorter lifespan than moderate runners, who run for about two to three hours a week.

How is that possible?
For the study, the runners had to pass on various information:from painkiller use to blood pressure and family history. None of the risk factors seemed to explain the shorter life span of long-distance runners. In addition, it is also not yet clear where the boundary lies between running enough and too much.

Is running bad?
'I will not advise anyone to stop running,' says one researcher. 'But it is especially important for long-distance runners to keep a close eye on the risks.' It could be that running long distances at a high pace simply demands too much of your body.

Source:Healthyday | Image:Shutterstock