Originally Posted by GeorgeBMac

"Chronic excessive sustained exercise may also be associated with coronary artery calcification, diastolic dysfunction, and large-artery wall stiffening"

I would have to disagree with that for that two reasons:

1) While the evidence between "excessive sustained exercise" and hypertrophy and arrhythmia is fairly strong, it is weak for "coronary artery calcification, diastolic dysfunction, and large-artery wall stiffening".

2) And, again, even if it were, that is not his problem. His problem is plaque clogging his cardiac arteries.

So, sorry, there is no evidence that we can attribute the plaque in McGillivray's arteries to his running. If anything, the running probably helped him (in that regard) rather than hurt him. As he reports:

"...meat and potatoes. I was hard-core. That’s what I ate, what I lived on. I always felt like if the furnace was hot enough, it would burn everything..."

He thought his running would compensate for a poor diet. He now knows that that was a bad assumption:

"Since receiving the test results in October, McGillivray has avoided red meat and “anything and everything that has any saturated or trans fats in it.” He has been taking medication. And he has been making regular visits to his doctor."