Athlete's heart syndrome: A friend or foe?

Abstract

Athlete's heart syndrome is a set of morphological and functional adaptive changes of the heart and consequently the cardiovascular system as a physiological response to chronic physical activity. It is believed that this syndrome is 'gray zone' between physiology and pathology and therefore subject to different interpretations. In the last few years, we have some sudden cardiac deaths of elite young athletes that have been speculated and associated with the athlete's heart syndrome. There is an increase in the scientific research in this field and the debate among the experts with one dilemma: if these physiological adaptive changes, athlete's heart syndrome, is the athletes friend or foe? In this Review, we describe various types of athlete's heart syndrome- their developmental, biology, differentiation, cell heterogeneity and functional characteristics.

Keywords

• Athlete's heart syndrome
• Sudden cardiac deaths
• Elite athletes