Can I do it? Sports

[Johncool]

I am a guy 32 yrs old with no health problems at all yet. The only I was told once on a heart ultra sound is that I have a very slight heart meremer.

I know how to stay healthy and keep it up with normal exercises and very healthy food. I don’t consume or take and sports enhancers, not even energy drinks or any form of caffeine.

My inquiry is about; I want to tweak my workouts by 500% and so on. I don’t want to end up with a heart failure. So many athletes end up with heart failure when they push them selves too far. Usually its because of a mistake or a family history thing.  Even in world class athletes, and I don’t wanna end up like them.

How do I find out if I am at any risk of  heart failure and the best way to prevent it.

[kenkeith]

An athletes heart enlarges (wall thickness) do to exercise, and there is a muscle heart disease that enlarges the heart. The difference is related to the morphology of heart cells.

Some insight: EKG does not distinquish; one common cardiovascular disease that has similar EKG reads is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is characterized by the thickening of the heart's walls. This genetic disorder is found in 1 out of 500 Americans and is responsible for thousands of sudden death cases every year. Of all sudden death cases, only about 8% are exercise related. The following table shows distinguishing characteristics of the two conditions.

An echocardiogram is more reliable and the test can distinquish:
Feature Athletic Heart Syndrome (AHS)                            Cardiomyopathy
Left ventricular hypertrophy  15 mm
Left ventricular end-diastolic diameter  70 mm
Diastolic function Normal (E:A ratio > 1)                 Abnormal (E:A ratio < 1)
Septal hypertrophy Symmetric Asymmetric (in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy)
Family history                                                              None May be present
BP response to exercise Normal                              Normal or reduced systolic BP response                                                                      respnse
.

Also, an AHS almost always has a pulse rate less than 60 bpm at rest and the heart is able to pump more efficiently.  With AHS the heart size will return to normal if there is deconditioning. The diseased heart will not.

[Johncool]

Thank you for the advice, I will get a check up on it, my consern is not only about the heart murmur that I have.

1-500 athletes have difrnt heat problems which only show after working out 2 hard, like heart chamber over growth or lack of proper oxygen to the heart muscle, among other heart problems.

How do I test for theses things and is there a way to prevent it.

[kenkeith]

Murmurs almost always relates to valve regurgitation.  The sound is the back flow of blood from the left ventricle to the left atrium.  If the murmur is serious, there could be a problem with excessive exertion.  An EKG could be helpful, but an echocardiogram would be more decisive as the associated doppler software visualizes blood flow through the heart and any backflow of blood.

Murmurs are often medically insignificant as small leakage of valves are not considered serious and do not progress.

[skydnsr]

You probably need to update your evaluation.  When you say you were once told that you have a heart murmur, it sounds like that was a while back.  There are different kinds of murmurs, and they mean different things.  Some of them never get any worse, but some of them do deteriorate.  If by chance yours has gotten worse, then there may be implications.  Hopefully you won't have any restrictions at all, but I think you are going to have to be re-examined, in order to find out.