Myocardial remodeling and syndrome of minor cardiac abnormalities in athletes

Abstract

During the recent decades, the syndrome of minor cardiac abnormalities becomes of high interest in terms of health maintenance and risk of cardiovascular diseases in different categories of healthy and presumably healthy persons, e. g. in athletes. In this article we present the results of a population-wide study of the prevalence of minor cardiac abnormalities e. g. mitral valve prolapse (MVP) in athletes. The correlates of cardiac abnormalities were analyzed in a group of high-dynamic sports. An incidence of MVP among professional high-qualification athletes was 3.3 %. Athletes with MVP were younger, and their training experience was lower. Our data contribute to the concept that MVP is associated with neither risk nor benefit to reach the excellence in sports. At the same time, in athletes with minor cardiac abnormalities the signs of cardiac overload were more prevalent compared to people with none.