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In this episode I review the\nabstract of a study released last March by Dr. Depina Kardara and his team at\nthe\xa0Athens\xa0Medical\xa0School,Hippokration\xa0Hospital\xa0titled \u201cMarathon Runners\nHave Increased Aortic Stiffness\u201d.\n\nIt is important to note that\nmy skepticism with this study is related to the implied suggestion that\ntraining for and running a marathon is considered extreme exercise.\xa0\xa0Maybe\nit is, or maybe after having run 21 of them\u2026the last not much more than a\ncontrolled crawl, I see the marathon as an endurance event that homo sapiens\nhave evolved to run as a means of hunting and gathering; chasing down our prey\nwith persistence.\xa0\n\nAs we listen to the results of\nthis research, we need to understand the severity of the impact, and consider\nother factors which might invalidate the results; remember: 25,000 runners just\nfinished the Boston Marathon a few weeks ago, not to mention the hundreds of\nthousands who will run such a distance this year; and yet the sample size for\nthe test group in this study was only 49.\xa0\n\nThis isn\u2019t to say that those\n49 aren\u2019t representative of the entire human population of marathon runners;\nnor does it necessarily trivialize the results of this study; but it does put\nthis study into perspective against the media interpretation that marathon\u2019s\ncan kill you.\n\nShow Links:\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe song \u201cThink For Yourself\u201d\nwas by George Hrab at