Marathoners

Last year Drs. S. A. Levine, Burgess Gordon and C. L. Derick of the Medical School of Harvard University studied the changes in the hearts of long distance runners. They found that men, who had been doing long distance running for years, did not develop enlargement of the heart. They found, also, that the amount of breathing space in the lungs did not seem to affect in one way or another the running ability of the men. This year the same observers studied the men who attempted to qualify for the Olympic games in the Boston marathon, a course of 26 miles and 285 yards. The contestants were examined a day or two before and then immediately after the race. The most striking feature revealed by the examinations, in addition to the increase in non-protein nitrogen and uric acid in the blood, was the marked fall in the amount of sugar. This resembled nothing so much as what occurs when an overdose of insulin is given to lower the sugar in a diabetic. In the same way the appearance of the athletes after the race, with muscular twitching, extreme pallor, cold, moist skin and nervous irritability, was like that of a patient who has had an overdose of insulin. The scientists interpret the findings as indicating that the normal supply of the reserve blood sugar in the body is insufficient for such a prolonged and violent effort as a marathon race. They suggest that the state of shock that these runners manifested could have been prevented, or at least ameliorated, if a larger amount of carbohydrate or sugar-containing food had been taken in the diet the night before or the morning of the race. They also suggest that it might be advisable for the runners to take sugar during the race in the form of lime drops or some similar confection.