Cardiac Anomalies - is something going on or is this normal?

[brownbobby]

Re: Re:

Deutsche Weil have posted a rather silly article. One point from it though:

According to a study by the French magazine Nouvel Observateur, the mortality rate among Tour de France competitors is almost three times higher than that of the general population.

Claiming your odds are three times as great of being immortal if you don't compete in la Grande Boucle also to me seems a bit silly.

Silly article illustrated needlessly with a photo of the poor kid literally dying on the side of the road. I'm sure we, and more importantly his family didn't need to see that. :sad:

 

[Le breton]

Re:

Another name to add to the list: Ramunas Navarduaskas

I looked a bit into this question of sudden deaths in cycling and other sports. I did find an interesting article on Forbes.com.
Here is an excerpt:

Sudden deaths in marathon running have been the subject of much study in the cardiology and sports medicine fields because they are rare and somewhat unpredictable occurrences. Research estimates range from 0.5 to 2 deaths per 100,000 marathon runners in a given race, a far lower risk of death than in the majority of daily activities.

Dr. Dan Tunstall Pedoe, the London Marathon's Medical Director from 1981 to 2006, wrote in the journal, Sports Medicine, that an increase in marathon popularity as one contributor to the apparent increase in long-distance racing deaths.

Dr. Pedoe examined the records of documented sudden deaths across 650,000 marathon completions during that time, concluding that such risk in the London Marathon was 1 in 80,000 finishers. That's not far removed from London's two deaths in the last three years across about 105,000 runners (although the 2012 death of 30-year-old Claire Squiershas been primarily attributed to her use of a sports supplement containing the amphetamine-like drug, DMAA.).
---------
Therefore we see that in foot racing, marathon type, there is roughly speaking 1 sudden death per 400 000 hours of competition.
It can easily be verified by anybody that the rate in cycling - pro, mass start events like granfondos (cyclosportives) in particular - is far lower. I let you guys and girls draw your own conclusions.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

It can easily be verified by anybody that the rate in cycling - pro, mass start events like granfondos (cyclosportives) in particular - is far lower. I let you guys and girls draw your own conclusions.

As you're opening this out to such a wide population, you'd better provide the proof to support your theory. Do you have any, apart from a gut feeling?

You should also note that there is a world of difference between the Freds taking on marathons and World Tour cyclists being discussed here, particularly WRT medical monitoring.

Finally, you need to provide a link to that article so people can read it for themselves...

 

[Le breton]

Re: Re:

Finally, you need to provide a link to that article so people can read it for themselves...[/quote]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/04/15/why-do-healthy-people-die-running-marathons/#2c46f2401363
It took me 2 seconds to find it just by quoting half a sentence from the excerpt.

 

[Le breton]

Re: Re:

You probably have heard of "La Marmotte", the Alps cyclosportive that was instrumental in starting in 1982 the social phenomenon of this type of events.
It's a 174 km event with about 4900 m uphill.
About 7000 cyclists compete in it and their riding times go roughly from 6h to 13h.
Let's take 10 h as an average. That is 70 000 hours of cycling every year.
It's roughly the same crowd taken from the general sporting population.

If the marathon rule of thumb applied, we would expect an average of 1 sudden death in that event every 6 years or so. In the past 25 years I have heard of 1 occurence (it's somewhere in my memory, but I can't remember the specifics).
I launched that idea because I thought readers might want to do their own calculation (as I have done also for the TdF)

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

You probably have heard of "La Marmotte", the Alps cyclosportive that was instrumental in starting in 1982 the social phenomenon of this type of events.
It's a 174 km event with about 4900 m uphill.
About 7000 cyclists compete in it and their riding times go roughly from 6h to 13h.
Let's take 10 h as an average. That is 70 000 hours of cycling every year.
It's roughly the same crowd taken from the general sporting population.

If the marathon rule of thumb applied, we would expect an average of 1 sudden death in that event every 6 years or so. In the past 25 years I have heard of 1 occurence (it's somewhere in my memory, but I can't remember the specifics).
I launched that idea because I thought readers might want to do their own calculation (as I have done also for the TdF)

Given the actual subject of this discussion (cardiac anomalies) the incidence of arrhythmia within that sector of the sportive population is what?

 

[Le breton]

Re: Re:

[/quote]Given the actual subject of this discussion (cardiac anomalies) the incidence of arrhythmia within that sector of the sportive population is what?[/quote]
You can easily imagine that such information in not any easier to find among cyclists than it would be in the marathon crowd.
Sudden deaths are reported and known but less dramatic events tend to be known only by the specific persons and their friends.

Sorry for bringing in your topic uninteresting considerations.
I'll try not to intrude in your reserved garden in the future.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

You can easily imagine that such information in not any easier to find among cyclists than it would be in the marathon crowd.
Sudden deaths are reported and known but less dramatic events tend to be known only by the specific persons and their friends.

It would appear to be as easy to find as data on deaths in sportives, seeing as you offer none save poor memory and one event.

There is a reason for trying to focus this discussion on elite level sport: we have the data and don't need to rely on anecdotes, selective memory, or poor journalism.

 

[Le breton]

Re: Re:

There is a reason for trying to focus this discussion on elite level sport: we have the data and don't need to rely on anecdotes, selective memory, or poor journalism.[/quote]

You didn't even read what I wrote.

 

[fmk_RoI]

You wrote

It can easily be verified by anybody that the rate in cycling - pro, mass start events like granfondos (cyclosportives) in particular - is far lower. I let you guys and girls draw your own conclusions.

You offer poor memory of one incident at one event (one incident among multiple fatalities at that event, correct?) and admit that the evidence for the actual subject being discussed here is difficult to find. So, reading what you wrote, you're contradicting yourself.

 

[Random Direction]

Fmk_rol. Not sure if you realize this, however you are coming off as being quite condescending. Perhaps you are smarter than the rest of us, and just making sure we all know.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Grégory Habeaux (35), who mostly rode at pro-conti level, calls it quits on his career:

'I had an alert last November, a sudden tachycardia. I passed the exams and I received a first green light but I soon felt that I did not return to the level. I had a new weakness in Paris-Troyes, another in training on March 19. I did my breathing exercises, finished the session but I put my bike down saying "That's it, I stop".'

 

[fmk_RoI]

An attempt was made earlier to link several cases of cardiac anomalies to the one sponsor.

Playing join the dots is easy. There's 20-something names in this thread, for 'cross, WT and Pro-Conti riders. Those 20-odd riders, they produce a list of about 120 different name sponsors across the full length of each rider's career. In that list of 120 or so different name sponsors, some crop up with more frequency than others, with two dozen or so getting multiple entries.

SEVEN
Omega Pharma (Aerts, Kaisen, Lodewyck, Meersman, Myngheer, Rogers, Vansummeren)

SIX
Lotto (Aerts, Goolaerts, Kaisen, Lodewyck, Meersman, Vansummeren)

FIVE
Willems Verandas (Goolaerts, Goris, Habeaux, Myngheer, Zingle)

FOUR
Quick Step (Kaisen, Meersman, Rogers, Vansummeren)
Rabobank (Boom, Gesink, Lodewyck, Walker)

THREE
Latexco (Kaisen, Rogers, Vansummeren)
Palmans (Aerts, Goris, Habeaux)
T-Mobile (Aerts, Kirchen, Rogers)

TWO
Accent Job (Goris, Habeaux)
AG2R (Portal, Vansummeren)
Astana (Boom, Zubeldia)
Barracuda (Navardauskas, Vansummeren)
Belisol (Kaisen, Meersman)
Belkin (Boom, Gesink)
Cervélo (Navardauskas, Vansummeren)
Columbia (Kirchen, Rogers)
Cras (Albert, Goris)
Garmin (Navardauskas, Vansummeren)
HighRoad (Kirchen, Rogers)
HTC (Kirchen, Rogers)
Jumbo (Boom, Gesink)
LottoNL (Boom, Gesink)
Sky (Portal, Rogers)

 

[Random Direction]

Re:

An attempt was made earlier to link several cases of cardiac anomalies to the one sponsor.

Playing join the dots is easy. There's 20-something names in this thread, for 'cross, WT and Pro-Conti riders. Those 20-odd riders, they produce a list of about 120 different name sponsors across the full length of each rider's career. In that list of 120 or so different name sponsors, some crop up with more frequency than others, with two dozen or so getting multiple entries.

SEVEN
Omega Pharma (Aerts, Kaisen, Lodewyck, Meersman, Myngheer, Rogers, Vansummeren) Belgium

SIX
Lotto (Aerts, Goolaerts, Kaisen, Lodewyck, Meersman, Vansummeren) Belgium


FIVE
Willems Verandas (Goolaerts, Goris, Habeaux, Myngheer, Zingle) Belgium

FOUR
Quick Step (Kaisen, Meersman, Rogers, Vansummeren) Belgium

Rabobank (Boom, Gesink, Lodewyck, Walker) Netherlands


THREE
Latexco (Kaisen, Rogers, Vansummeren)
Palmans (Aerts, Goris, Habeaux)
T-Mobile (Aerts, Kirchen, Rogers)

TWO
Accent Job (Goris, Habeaux)
AG2R (Portal, Vansummeren)
Astana (Boom, Zubeldia)
Barracuda (Navardauskas, Vansummeren)
Belisol (Kaisen, Meersman)
Belkin (Boom, Gesink)
Cervélo (Navardauskas, Vansummeren)
Columbia (Kirchen, Rogers)
Cras (Albert, Goris)
Garmin (Navardauskas, Vansummeren)
HighRoad (Kirchen, Rogers)
HTC (Kirchen, Rogers)
Jumbo (Boom, Gesink)
LottoNL (Boom, Gesink)
Sky (Portal, Rogers)

Interesting geographic distribution of the teams with the most cardiac events noted.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

Interesting geographic distribution of the teams with the most cardiac events noted.

And which conclusion is it leading you to jump to?

 

[Random Direction]

There is a good reason why i simply saod interesting. A grouping of data points does not lead to a conclusion, simply a need to understand why the data is behaving in the way it does. A trail to look at in more detail, yes, a hypothesis or conclusion, no.

Why not be curious about numbers? Better than fighting over them. Want to be my friend?

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

There is a good reason why i simply saod interesting. A grouping of data points does not lead to a conclusion, simply a need to understand why the data is behaving in the way it does. A trail to look at in more detail, yes, a hypothesis or conclusion, no.

Why not be curious about numbers? Better than fighting over them. Want to be my friend?

Your hypothesis appears to involve mis-reading teams where I was clear I had provided a list of sponsors, and looking for a regional angle, Belgium. What else is it saying?

 

[Le breton]

Re: Re:

[..... A trail to look at in more detail, yes, a hypothesis or conclusion, no.

[/quote]Your hypothesis appears ...[/quote]

He said "no hypothesis"

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re: Re:

He said "no hypothesis"

And I am saying there clearly is a hypothesis, given the way Random Direction has spun what was actually said.

 

[Irondan]

Re: Re:

..... A trail to look at in more detail, yes, a hypothesis or conclusion, no.

Your hypothesis appears ... (shortened for brevity)

He said "no hypothesis"

If you can't quote another member correctly then don't do it at all.

The Mods..

 

[Random Direction]

My friend (I'll call you that because I like your tough side), a hypothesis is much stronger than simple exploration of ideas. There is insufficient data for a hypothesis, yet enough to sniff around, kinda like a dog following a scent. Most likely leads to nothing, once in a while leads to a rotting fish on a beach.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

My friend (I'll call you that because I like your tough side), a hypothesis is much stronger than simple exploration of ideas. There is insufficient data for a hypothesis, yet enough to sniff around, kinda like a dog following a scent. Most likely leads to nothing, once in a while leads to a rotting fish on a beach.

Why so coy? Why not say where this could possibly lead, why not explain the obvious avenues to examine? Can't you think of them?

 

[Random Direction]

Of course I can interpret data mon ami. Have multiple published papers on the subject. However since it appears that my friend is looking to both create and win an Internet argument, I prefer to find out what is behind the gruff exterior. Usually there is a soft undernourished piece inside - the trick is to find a way to it.

On cardiac abnormalities, my family has been a struck with that. In familiar case, I'd call it a combination of over training and stress. For much more talented athletes like professional cyclists, there is likely some of that too.

Spatial aggregation - chance, confirmation bias, or an indicative cluster? In a normal population, likely one of the first two. Are cyclists normal?

 

[fmk_RoI]

Re:

Spatial aggregation - chance, confirmation bias, or an indicative cluster? In a normal population, likely one of the first two. Are cyclists normal?

So you wouldn't begin by questioning the validity of the data?

We've got a list of riders drawn from 'cross, conti and pro-conti teams, as well as World Tour. We know we don't know all the cases at below WT level, just the newsworthy ones, so we know we're dealing with incomplete data there. What impact does that have on the data?

Even at WT level, what confidence can we have that we have (near) complete data? Do we have data from former WT riders who spent the last years of their career riding at lower levels? How about data on former WT riders who, post retirement, have been diagnosed with a cardiac anomaly, surely they should be on the list too, but surely we can't possibly have all the data on them, they're not all likely to put out a press release saying they've just had a flutter, are they?

The list of sponsors itself - what is it? If the cases included cover a ten year period, 2009-2018, then some of the teams those riders rode for are from back in the mid-nineties, so we've got a list of sponsors from a quarter of a century. Are sponsors who have been in the sport longer than others more represented simply by having been there? Are sponsors who have sponsored teams at multiple levels - development and professional teams, cross and road teams - more represented simply by having been there? What is the churn rate of riders at the different teams the sponsors have been involved with - have some been quite stable while others have been all change all the time? Do we differentiate sponsors by where they appear in a team name, or just treat all name sponsors as being equal? Why aren't we including other sponsors?

Way, way, way before you even begin thinking about clusters, surely you have to ask whether or not the data isn't itself just a clusterfuck?

As I said: playing joining the dots is easy...

 

[RedheadDane]

Could there, and this is a pretty horrible thought imho, but could there be a just toughen it up mentality in Belgium/the Netherlands?
According to Meersman while a French doctor advised him to stop, a Belgian one advised him to continue. And... didn't Myngheer already have a warning, yet continued? Of course, can't have been easy having - probably - chased a dream your whole life, only to be told that your health may not be strong enough. For Vansummeren and Meersman I suppose it was a lot easier to just walk away.