A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest peoples’ hearts are built for endurance.
Researchers used ultrasound imaging to examine the hearts of more than 160 adult men from four groups: long-distance runners, sedentary adults, highly trained American footballers, and the Tarahumara, Native American farmers renowned for their running ability.
They also looked at the hearts of 43 adult male chimpanzees.
When they compared the thickest of the heart’s four chambers, the blood-pumping, strawberry-shaped left ventricle, there were clear differences.
- Endurance runners and farmers had larger, elongated ventricles with thin walls — traits that help pump large volumes of blood for a long time.
- American footballers, whose training emphasised short, high-intensity exercise, had shorter, wider ventricles with thicker walls.
- So did the sedentary humans.
- The chimps had the shortest, thickest ventricles.
The study suggests that smaller thicker chambers benefits high-intensity activities. But a couch potato lifestyle results in the same kind of thickening.
For those who take part in endurance activities, the heart chambers are not so thick, similar to our ancestors the hunter-gatherers.
This may explain why there’s an increase in conditions like high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease in modern day man, who predominantly has thicker heart chambers.
But sedentary readers shouldn’t feel heartbroken.
It seems that changes in heart shape are reversible, if we take up activities like distance running and swimming over many years.
So, it’s never too late to undergo a ‘change of heart’.
