SOME of the world’s fittest men and women will perform at the Olympics in
September. But even these elite athletes can’t discount the threat of heart
disease at some time in their lives. And their unusually large hearts may
disguise the symptoms, research in Italy suggests.
Antonio Pelliccia, of the Institute of Sports Science in Rome, has studied
the routine electrocardiograms (ECGs) of 1005 athletes from the Italian Olympic
squad. He found that 40 per cent had a type of abnormal ECG that often reveals
problems leading to premature heart failure.
Pelliccia says that in most cases these abnormalities are…
