Why the study?
How many cardiovascular deaths occur by chance alone while running in white men?
How many cardiovascular deaths occur by chance alone while running in white men?
A significant number of cardiovascular deaths during or immediately after running can be expected to occur by chance alone, without running necessarily being the causal trigger.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Chance deaths during running warrant caution against causal attribution; leaves open true trigger risk pending higher-level evidence.
When a person dies of cardiovascular causes during recreational running, the public frequently assumes the exercise caused the death. For a statistical perspective, the number of cardiovascular deaths while running that occurs by chance alone is estimated. If white male runners resemble marathoners, being nonsmokers and at lowest lean weight, four deaths from cardiovascular disease would occur per year while running 20 minutes, three times per week and 30 deaths per year if the two hours after running are considered as a running-associated period. However, if runners resemble the white male population, then 15 deaths would occur from cardiovascular disease per year while running and 104 during the associated period. Thus, four to 104 cardiovascular deaths per year are predicted on a purely temporal basis in white men while running.
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Jeffrey P. Koplan (1979) studied this question.
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