EXERCISE AND HEART-DISEASE - CARDIAC FINDINGS IN FATAL CYCLE ACCIDENTS

Background-Regular cyclists have been found to have a lower incidence of coronary events (CHD) than the general public. Non-invasive studies have found that competitive cyclists develop a cardiac hypertrophy th at is physiological and reversible. Methods-To obtain pathological sup port for these observations, the postmortem findings of 32 cyclists ki lled in accidents have been compared with those in a control group of 32 other road traffic accidents, which were matched with the cyclists by sex, age, and year of death. Findings-Large myocardial scars and co mplete blockage of a coronary artery were only found in the controls; serious stenoses of coronary arteries (>50%) were found in eight contr ols but in only one of the cyclists. Of the cyclists, 25 had normal co ronary arteries as compared with 14 of the controls. The mean age of t he cyclists with evidence of CHD was greater than that of similarly af fected controls. The heart weights of the two groups were almost the s ame but heart weight varied with the degree of CHD. The heart weight o f the healthy cyclists (389 g) was greater than that of the healthy co ntrols (371 g) but this was not statistically significant. Interpretat ion-The results are in keeping with the concept that regular exercise provides some protection from the development of CHD and that cycling may be a valuable form of exercise in this respect. This may be of imp ortance as the number of physically active occupations declines.