Olympians' hearts in focus: Study reveals elite rowers' surprising AFib risk

[medicalxpress.com]


"Some of these athletes had no idea they had AFib until we screened them, as it is a disease that can develop without any outward symptoms,"

"When we followed up on these athletes, we found more cases of AFib had developed. This demonstrates that we need to keep a closer eye on their hearts when they retire and for many years after they stop training."

My husband was a athlete and has what is termed an " athlete's heart": Enlargement of both atriums. He now has a slow flutter, and asymptomatic. Age 76.

I was a competitive runner and cyclist most of my adult life, and did develop AF near the tail end of a 10km maintenance run eight years ago. In fact, I had two short runs of tachycardia/maybe SVT during cycling years prior to that, each lasting maybe five minutes. However, despite my own history, associated as it is, it was undiagnosed sleep apnea that set me off. Or, so the story goes... I wonder how many athletes actually have undiagnosed sleep apnea.

I think I have shared this before - I was a competitive swimmer from age 8-23 culminating with making two Pan American Games teams and one Olympic Games team (1968). The last 5 years of training is where the endurance element most applies with a maximum of 6 miles of training in one day. Typically, more like 3-4 miles a day. And this was for races in length of 1:00 to 2:30 minutes. Did this cause afib?

I have had two successful ablations, the first lasted for 13 years and the second now good for 5 years. If this training caused afib, I would still do it again.