Enhancing marathon safety: The role of low-dose aspirin in cardiac arrest prevention

Enhancing marathon safety: The role of low-dose aspirin in cardiac arrest prevention Arthur J. Siegel, Medical Director at MGH Internal Medicine Associates, Belmont, MA, USA tells us how low-dose aspirin can support primary prevention of marathon-related cardiac arrest in middle-aged men with coronary atherosclerosis. While habitual endurance exercise such as training for a marathon is quintessentially cardioprotective, running the 26.2 mile race transiently increases the risk for cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death. (1) Male gender and the marathon were identified as significant and independent risk factors for race-associated cardiac arrest in a ten-year registry of United States road races beginning in the year 2000, in which events increased significantly in frequency during the study. (2)