It was a recurring fear but a Dutch study is reassuring: participating in a large-scale sporting event, such as the Paris half-marathon for example, does not lead to an increase in the risk of sudden death among participants. by Dr. Gérald Kierzek, emergency physician and medical director of TipsForWomens.
Do major sporting events cause higher mortality? A Dutch study shows that no, even suggesting that participants would even be at less risk of death in the following three years.
No increased risk of sudden death during major sporting events
In this work, Dutch researchers compared the risk of death occurring in more than 700,000 people: participants in at least one large-scale sporting event, such as running, walking or cycling and those not not participating in it.
The first group included 546,876 participants and the second 211,592, who were followed during the period extending from 1995 to 2017, i.e. for more than twenty years. Results: the participants did not have an increased risk of mortality compared to the others and on the contrary even presented a risk of death reduced by 30%, during the three years following the event.
Participating in a sporting event improves mortality
For Dr Gérald Kierzek, questioned about these results, this study demonstrates that high-intensity sport does not present health risks.
On the other hand, he nuances, “iIt is important, for people who smoke or who are over 40 years old when resuming physical activity, to consult a doctor for a check-up, with cardiac auscultation and a electrocardiogram“ he advises, “because sport should not update a cardiac pathology which would not have been detected until then“.
