To run or not to run?

Ultramarathons; the ultimate endurance test on the human body, but are they really worth it?

Ultramarathons are classed as races which are longer than the standard 26 mile Marathon, and can be of of a variation of distance, terrain and timescale- for example they can range from about a 5 hour race to a 64 day one.
There are huge benefits which the super-human runners gain from, ranging from joint health to an increased sex appeal, but is the huge amount of stress on their bodies really worth the effort?

Researchers at the hospital of the University of Ulm in Germany followed a group of 44 runners who competed in the 2009 Trans Europe Foot Race. Lasting 64 days, the athletes ran nearly 2800 miles from southern Italy to Norway and scientists regularly tracked their physiological health during the spectacular event. They took a portable MRI scanner with them, and so periodically scanned the runners' legs, feet, heart, brains and cardiovascular systems every 3-4 days, in addition to taking blood and urine samples.

Uwe Schütz, the leader of the team of researchers, and his colleagues also measured the amount water emitted by the shock-absorbing cartilage between the bones of the leg, around the knee and ankle. They found that, during the first 1550 miles of the race, all 44 runners experienced some cartalige degradation at some point in the beginning of the race. However, after this point the cartilage seemed to auto-regenerate as the athletes continued on. This has thus proven for the first time that cartilage does not have to be at rest to regenerate, as before the study scientists thought that it needed to renew itself in order to get better.

Futhermore, organs such as the brain were also negatively affected by the huge feat of human endurance, as, in 13 of the participatants who agreed to extra brain scanning, the brain seemed to decrease in volume by up too 6%. This loss was in grey matter, but as the sample size was so small and particular, it is hard to judge whether this is the general case, as the sample is not specifically representative of the population. However, there were no lasting effects on participants as the brain seemed to regenerate also and return back to its normal size.

There are many theories as to why this happens, including one which suggests that this is due to a lack of visual stimulation during the 64 days, as one of the main regions of matter loss in the brain is particularly known to be involved in visual processing. Other theories include general fatigue, exhaustion and extreme levels of physical activity.

In a nutshell, there are still many unknowns regarding the physical effects of running particularly long distances; however, I think that the positives highly outweigh the negatives, as all of the physiological effects in this study seemed to dissapear within 6 months, and with obesity being one of the highest indirect causes of death in the world, I think it is better to be more active than not.