Division of Clinical Sciences, St George's University of London, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, UK.
Nat Rev Cardiol. 2014 Apr;11(4):198-217. doi: 10.1038/nrcardio.2014.15. Epub 2014 Feb 25.
The increasing globalization of sport has resulted in athletes from a wide range of ethnicities emerging onto the world stage. Fuelled by the untimely death of a number of young professional athletes, data generated from the parallel increase in preparticipation cardiovascular evaluation has indicated that ethnicity has a substantial influence on cardiac adaptation to exercise. From this perspective, the group most intensively studied comprises athletes of African or Afro-Caribbean ethnicity (black athletes), an ever-increasing number of whom are competing at the highest levels of sport and who often exhibit profound electrical and structural cardiac changes in response to exercise. Data on other ethnic cohorts are emerging, but remain incomplete. This Review describes our current knowledge on the impact of ethnicity on cardiac adaptation to exercise, starting with white athletes in whom the physiological electrical and structural changes--collectively termed the 'athlete's heart'--were first described. Discussion of the differences in the cardiac changes between ethnicities, with a focus on black athletes, and of the challenges that these variations can produce for the evaluating physician is also provided. The impact of ethnically mediated changes on preparticipation cardiovascular evaluation is highlighted, particularly with respect to false positive results, and potential genetic mechanisms underlying racial differences in cardiac adaptation to exercise are described.
运动的日益全球化导致来自不同种族的运动员出现在世界舞台上。由于一些年轻职业运动员的意外死亡，从赛前心血管评估的平行增加中产生的数据表明，种族对心脏适应运动有很大影响。从这个角度来看，研究最多的群体包括非洲或非裔加勒比种族（黑人运动员）的运动员，他们中的越来越多的人正在最高水平的运动中竞争，并且经常在运动中表现出深刻的电和结构心脏变化。关于其他种族群体的数据正在出现，但仍不完整。本综述描述了我们目前对种族对心脏适应运动的影响的了解，从首先描述白人运动员的生理电和结构变化（统称为“运动员心脏”）开始。还讨论了不同种族之间的心脏变化的差异，重点是黑人运动员，以及这些差异可能给评估医生带来的挑战。强调了种族介导的变化对赛前心血管评估的影响，特别是关于假阳性结果，以及运动中种族差异的潜在遗传机制。
