Heart failure & cardiomyopathiesCohort study
Long-Term Changes in Ventricular Function in Recreational Marathon Runners
- Prospective cohort study
- longitudinal
- observational
- single-centre
- Conducted August to December 2019
Authors' conclusion
Results showed that marathon-induced acute troponin T increase was not associated with right ventricular ejection fraction after 10 years of endurance training and competition.
Study context
- Population
- Male recreational marathon runners, single centre in Germany
- Participants
- 152 runners
- Exposure
- 10-year follow-up vs prerace
- Outcome
- Cardiac biomarkers and 3D echocardiography
- Follow-up
- prerace, immediately, on days 1 and 3 postrace, and at 10-year follow-up
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Troponin T increase vs RVEF and LVEF change at 10 years · 10-year follow-up
No association of troponin T increase with RVEF change (Pearson r)
−0.10, P = .35
No association of troponin T increase with LVEF change (Pearson r)
−0.09, P = .35
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
RVEF (median, IQR) · prerace, immediately, days 1 and 3 postrace, 10-year follow-up
- Prerace
- 52.4% (50.0%-55.1%)
- Immediate postrace
- 47.6% (44.7%-51.5%); P < .001
- 1-day postrace
- 50.7% (48.4%-53.0%); P = .001
- 3-day postrace
- 51.3% (50.4%-53.0%); P = .18
- 10-year follow-up
- 51.9% (49.6%-54.5%); P = .15
LVEF (median, IQR) · 10-year follow-up
- Decreased from 59.6% (55.6%-64.5%) to 57.6% (54.1%-61.6%)
- P < 0.001
Lateral E/e' ratio (median, IQR) · 10-year follow-up
- Increased from 5.1 (4.3-6.1) to 5.4 (4.5-6.4)
- P < 0.001
Original publication
Long-Term Changes in Ventricular Function in Recreational Marathon Runners. JAMA Cardiol. Published 1 January 2026. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2025.4456
Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it