The Healthy Heart: Lessons from Nature's Elite Athletes.
The incidence of cardiovascular disease in humans is more than three times that of many wild and domestic mammals despite nearly identical heart morphologies and responses to exercise. A survey of mammalian species from 0.002-kg shrews to 43,000-kg whales shows that the human heart is more dog-like than cat-like and that neither body size nor longevity accounts for the relative vulnerability to cardiovascular disease. Rather, a major difference is daily activity patterns, which may underlie the comparatively healthy hearts of wild mammals.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California; williams@biology.ucsc.edu.
Terrie M
TM
Williams
USAT Level II Certified Race Director-USAT Swim Task Force, Finish Line Productions, LLC, Boulder Creek, California;
Penni
P
Bengtson
Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Moss Landing, California; and.
Diana L
DL
Steller
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California;
Donald A
DA
Croll
Deparments of Marine Biology and Wildlife and Fisheries Science, Texas A&M University, Galveston, Texas.
Randall W
RW
Davis
D000204:Activity Cycles; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D059267:Cardiomegaly, Exercise-Induced; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000503:physiopathology; D015444:Exercise; D006304:Health Status; D006321:Heart / Q000294:innervation / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D009043:Motor Activity