What Athletes Need to Know About Heart Health
Updated: Mar 23
February is American Heart Month, designed to raise awareness of heart disease, understand risk factors that increase the likelihood of heart disease, and promote lifestyle habits that promote a healthy heart (1, 2).

As an athlete your heart is your powerhouse. Most athletes intentionally live a healthy lifestyle to support their sport and therefore have reduced cardiac risk factors. However, most sudden cardiac death in athletes – an estimated 1 in 100k-300k athletes under 35 and 1 in 15k joggers or 1 in 50k marathoners over 35 (3) – are due to an underlying congenital heart condition or pre-existing heart disease. With detection of these conditions, lives can be saved.