骑自行车可延寿六年.

　　New data from Tour de France cyclists finds that those athletes live an average of six years longer compared with their counterparts in the general population and die less often from heart-related ailments, damping concerns that extreme, intense exercise increases the likelihood of death from cardiovascular reasons.

　　The new study, which will be presented Tuesday here at a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, examined 786 French cyclists who competed in the Tour de France between 1947 and 2012 and the cause of death for those who died over that time.

　　The data also give limited reassurance that doping with erythropoietin, known as Epo, doesn&apost appear to dramatically increase the risk of heart attack or early death among elite cyclists--at least in the near term.

　　The findings offer &aposgood proof that sports--even if the sport is very, very intensive--among healthy people, without any heart disease, is still benicial,&apos said Eloi Marijon, one of the study authors and a cardiologist at the European Georges Pompidou Hospital and Paris Descartes University.

　　The results &aposlaid to rest&apos concerns over exercise intensity with cycling, though the results don&apost necessarily generalize to marathon running, said Donna Arnett, chair of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and past-president of the American Heart Association, who is chairing the session at which the data will be presented.

　　Cardiovascular concerns about high-intensity exercise stemmed from a small number of studies on marathon runners, which used advanced imaging ando other measurement tools and found some detrimental signs on the heart immediately after races, prompting some doctors to worry that there may be drawbacks to such extreme exercise.

　　But those findings were likely normal wear and tear that occurs after strenuous physical activity when muscles are pushed and a greater volume of blood courses through the heart, and they go away after the body recovers, as some previous studies have shown, said Alfred Bove, professor emeritus at Temple University in Philadelphia and a former president of the American College of Cardiology, who wasn&apost involved in Tuesday&aposs study.

　　&aposNow that we have better windows into physiology, we&aposre beginning to see things we don&apost understand,&apos he said.

　　Such changes may be more easily observed using new imaging and measurement tools. And, many findings about the heart are based on sick patients and shouldn&apost necessarily be extrapolated to healthy athletes, according to Dr. Bove.

　　Another question with the study was whether it could shed light on the cardiac fects of doping with Epo, a medication used to treat anemia and other conditions by increasing the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream. Relatively little is known about the long-term fects of doping with Epo, which is used by endurance athletes to enhance their performance by training harder and is banned by the international cycling community in competition. But, when there is an overproduction of red blood cells in the bone marrow, a condition called polycythemia, heart attacks and strokes can result.

　　It wasn&apost known which cyclists in the study were using what performance-enhancing substances, so the insight that could be gleaned from the study about Epo was limited.

　　But, because the use of Epo was thought to be common among cyclists in the Tour de France in the 1990s, researchers expected that if Epo was linked to heart attacks, they would see an uptick in the number of deaths among riders in the past 20 years, as compared with competitors in previous decades, according to Dr. Marijon.

　　Instead, they observed no difference in the rate of death by decade, suggesting that &aposprobably there is no strong or immediate association with doping&apos and heart attack, said Dr. Marijon. He urged caution in interpreting the results and said that more research is needed over a longer period of a time.

　　The study also is being published Tuesday in the European Heart Journal.

　　来自环法自行车赛(Tour de France)车手的最新数据显示，车手们的平均寿命比普通同龄人要长六年，死于心脏相关疾病的频率也较低。这打消了极限高强度运动会增加死于心血管疾病可能性的疑虑。

　　Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images7月，英国车手克里斯多夫•弗罗梅(Christopher Froome)庆祝他赢得2013环法自行车赛。更值得庆幸的是，研究表明，他并不会因为这类极限运动而使其心脏受损。这项最新研究对786名于1947年至2012年间参加环法自行车赛的法国车手及死亡车手的死因进行了研究。研究结果于9月3日在欧洲心脏病学会(European Society of Cardiology)的会议上进行了发布。

　　数据也在一定程度上表明，服用促红细胞生成素似乎不会大幅增加精英车手心脏病发作或早逝的几率──至少短期内不会。

　　该项研究的作者之一、欧洲乔治蓬皮杜医院(European Georges Pompidou Hospital)及巴黎第五大学(Paris Descartes University)心脏病学家埃洛伊·马里恩(Eloi Marijon)说，研究结果“有力地证明对于没有任何心脏疾病的健康人来说，运动依然是有益的，即使是强度非常大的运动。”

　　阿拉巴马大学伯明翰分校(University of Alabama at Birmingham)流行病学系系主任、曾任美国心脏协会(American Heart Association)会长、负责主持该项研究数据发布会议的多纳·阿尔奈特(Donna Arnett)说，研究结果消除了人们对骑自行车运动强度的疑虑，不过结果并不一定能够推广到马拉松长跑。

　　高强度运动会造成心血管疾病的担忧源自少数几项对马拉松运动员的研究。通过高级成像及其他测量工具，研究发现比赛结束后运动员的心脏有受损迹象，致使一些医生担心这类极限运动可能有弊端。

　　费城天普大学(Temple University)名誉教授、曾任美国心脏病学会(American College of Cardiology)会长的阿尔弗雷德·博夫(Alfred Bove)说，但这些研究结果可能只是正常的慢性劳损，部分以往研究显示，高强度的身体活动后，肌肉会受到挤压，流过心脏的血液量也会增加，在身体恢复后就会消失。博夫并未参与9月3日的研究发布会。

　　他说：“现在有了更好的研究生理学的窗口，我们开始逐渐了解不懂的东西了。”

　　这种身体变化用最新的成像和测量工具可能更容易观察到。而且博夫表示，许多心脏相关的研究都是针对病人所做，不一定适用于推测健康运动员的情况。

　　另一个有关该项研究的问题是，它是否对服用促红细胞生成素对心脏的影响具有指导意义。促红细胞生成素是一种通过增加血液中红血球数量治疗贫血及其他症状的药物。耐力运动员通过服用这种药物同时加大训练强度来提高成绩，但国际自行车界禁止在比赛中使用该药物。研究人员对服用促红细胞生成素带来的长期影响知之甚少。不过当骨髓中红血球过量时，就会出现一种名叫红血球增多症的症状，从而导致心脏病和中风发作。

　　尚不清楚该项研究中哪些车手用过哪些有助提高成绩的药物，因此从该项研究中得到的有关促红细胞生成素的见解很有限。

　　不过，马里恩说，由于促红细胞生成素的使用被认为在20世纪90年代环法自行车赛的车手中比较普遍，研究人员推测，若促红细胞生成素会造成心脏病发作，那么过去20年间的死亡的车手人数与之前相比会有所上升。

　　马里恩说，但是他们并没有观察到以十年为周期的死亡率有什么差别，这表明“服用促红细胞生成素与心脏病发作之间并没有很强或直接的关联”。他敦促大家在解读研究结果时应谨慎，并表示需要更多的研究及增加研究的时间段。

　　该项研究同时于9月3日发表在《欧洲心脏期刊》(European Heart Journal)上。

　　New data from Tour de France cyclists finds that those athletes live an average of six years longer compared with their counterparts in the general population and die less often from heart-related ailments, damping concerns that extreme, intense exercise increases the likelihood of death from cardiovascular reasons.

　　The new study, which will be presented Tuesday here at a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, examined 786 French cyclists who competed in the Tour de France between 1947 and 2012 and the cause of death for those who died over that time.

　　The data also give limited reassurance that doping with erythropoietin, known as Epo, doesn&apost appear to dramatically increase the risk of heart attack or early death among elite cyclists--at least in the near term.

　　The findings offer &aposgood proof that sports--even if the sport is very, very intensive--among healthy people, without any heart disease, is still benicial,&apos said Eloi Marijon, one of the study authors and a cardiologist at the European Georges Pompidou Hospital and Paris Descartes University.

　　The results &aposlaid to rest&apos concerns over exercise intensity with cycling, though the results don&apost necessarily generalize to marathon running, said Donna Arnett, chair of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and past-president of the American Heart Association, who is chairing the session at which the data will be presented.

　　Cardiovascular concerns about high-intensity exercise stemmed from a small number of studies on marathon runners, which used advanced imaging ando other measurement tools and found some detrimental signs on the heart immediately after races, prompting some doctors to worry that there may be drawbacks to such extreme exercise.

　　But those findings were likely normal wear and tear that occurs after strenuous physical activity when muscles are pushed and a greater volume of blood courses through the heart, and they go away after the body recovers, as some previous studies have shown, said Alfred Bove, professor emeritus at Temple University in Philadelphia and a former president of the American College of Cardiology, who wasn&apost involved in Tuesday&aposs study.

　　&aposNow that we have better windows into physiology, we&aposre beginning to see things we don&apost understand,&apos he said.

　　Such changes may be more easily observed using new imaging and measurement tools. And, many findings about the heart are based on sick patients and shouldn&apost necessarily be extrapolated to healthy athletes, according to Dr. Bove.

　　Another question with the study was whether it could shed light on the cardiac fects of doping with Epo, a medication used to treat anemia and other conditions by increasing the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream. Relatively little is known about the long-term fects of doping with Epo, which is used by endurance athletes to enhance their performance by training harder and is banned by the international cycling community in competition. But, when there is an overproduction of red blood cells in the bone marrow, a condition called polycythemia, heart attacks and strokes can result.

　　It wasn&apost known which cyclists in the study were using what performance-enhancing substances, so the insight that could be gleaned from the study about Epo was limited.

　　But, because the use of Epo was thought to be common among cyclists in the Tour de France in the 1990s, researchers expected that if Epo was linked to heart attacks, they would see an uptick in the number of deaths among riders in the past 20 years, as compared with competitors in previous decades, according to Dr. Marijon.

　　Instead, they observed no difference in the rate of death by decade, suggesting that &aposprobably there is no strong or immediate association with doping&apos and heart attack, said Dr. Marijon. He urged caution in interpreting the results and said that more research is needed over a longer period of a time.

　　The study also is being published Tuesday in the European Heart Journal.

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