Abstract
Background: After long-term intensive training, considerable morphological and functional heart changes occur in professional athletes. Such changes arise progressively and regress upon interruption of the physical activity. Morphological and functional alterations on heart are known as “Athlete's heart” condition.Objective: This study aims to compare echocardiographic parameters in two different groups of professional athletes. Furthermore, a prospective study is performed analyzing the echocardiographic changes occurring in 12 professional players in 3 years of follow-up.Materials and Methods: 78 football players were examined from July 2011 to May 2016 (40 enrolled in Group A and 38 in Group B). Twelve players of GROUP A were followed for 3 consecutive seasons. The general clinical examination, the cardiopulmonary evaluation, the ECG, the ergometer stress test, the spirometric examination and the standard cardiac eco color doppler test were recorded.Results: Left ventricle dimensions, left atrium dimensions, and interventricular septum dimensions were higher in A players than in B players. Moreover, following up 12 players for 3 years, a statistically significant increase of such values was observed.Discussion: In A players, higher dimensions of the left chambers and the interventricular septum were observed, compared to B players. No statistically significant difference was found regarding the ejection fraction. The 3 years follow-up showed a statistically significant increase of both left chambers and interventricular septum dimensions, particularly in the second and third year.Conclusions: These findings demonstrated that A players have higher echocardiographic parameters respect to B players. The results of this study support the scientific theory that long-term intensive training influences heart function, inducing “athlete's heart” with morphological adaptations. No significant echocardiographic variation within the examined sample was observed for different roles (goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, or attacker) or skills of individual players.
Highlights
Physical activity is an essential tool in order to prevent cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and metabolic diseases
This study focused on two different professional athletes groups: Group A, “Serie A” football team, compared to Group B, composed by the respective B team competing in the “Primavera” league
Our findings confirm the direct physiological effect of physical activity; it can be associated with the “Athlete’s heart” changes. All players of both groups were undergone to clinical and instrumental evaluation; it was reported an increase in left cardiac chambers size and interventricular septum thickness
Summary
Physical activity is an essential tool in order to prevent cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and metabolic diseases. “Athlete’s heart” is defined as the adaptation of the heart to long-term intensive physical activity, and is characterized by symmetric and harmonic increase of intracavitary diameters and wall thickness (Fagard, 2003; Turillazzi et al, 2010). Such adaptation is strictly dependent on a wide spectrum of factors: (1) genotype (hereditary factors) (Sessa et al, 2011); (2) age of onset of physical activity; (3) type and intensity of training program (Lavie et al, 2001). After long-term intensive training, considerable morphological and functional heart changes occur in professional athletes Such changes arise progressively and regress upon interruption of the physical activity. Morphological and functional alterations on heart are known as “Athlete’s heart” condition
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