Running: Will It Wreck Your Body?
4/16/202631 min
Lots of us love — or love to hate — running. And we do it because it’s supposed to be healthy, right?! But then we hear tons of stories about runners getting hurt — sometimes so badly that they have to hang up their sneakers. And there are people on social media going even further, claiming it’s one of the worst things we can do for our bodies. So IS running secretly bad for us? And could too much of it actually bring you closer to a heart attack? We’ll explore the science on all of that, and we’ll also dig into runner’s high: What is going on in the brain to cause this feeling? With help from Dr. Rasmus Østergaard Nielsen, Professor Duck-Chul Lee, and Dr. Michael Siebers, we look at the science to find out if running is the key to a healthy life or if there are peer-reviewed reasons to be a hater. Find our transcript here: https://tinyurl.com/sciencevsrunning In this episode, we cover: (01:48) What’s the deal with running injuries? (10:51) How to get hurt less (15:03) The secret to a longer life (19:34) What is the runner’s high? (28:58) How to get runner’s high This episode was produced by Ekedi Fausther-Keeys with help from Blythe Terrell, Michelle Dang, Rose Rimler, Meryl Horn and Wendy Zukerman. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Wendy Zukerman is our executive producer. Fact checking by Taylor White. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Peter Leonard, Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. Thanks to the researchers we got in touch with for this episode, including Dr. Anita Eberl, Dr. Johannes Fuss, Professor Robert Otto, Dr. Hirofumi Tanaka, Dr. Peter Kokkinos, Dr. Marilyn Moffat, and Director Brian Farr. A big thanks to Joseph Lavelle Wilson and the Zukerman family. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsEkedi Fausther-Keeys· Host0:00
Hi, I'm Ekedi Fausther-Keeys filling in for Wendy, and you're listening to Science Versus. [upbeat music] The show that pits facts against 5Ks. Today on the show, running. [upbeat music] More than 28 million people go running every week in the US according to one survey. [upbeat music] And the reason why we do this is presumably because it's good for us, right? And not only that, but we hear running can give you this sort of amazing feeling.
Meryl Horn· Host0:31
It's time to get high. Runner's high, that is.
Ekedi Fausther-Keeys· Host0:35
I had ran two miles straight, and I experienced runner's high for the very first time. It was so freaking cool. It was, like, full adrenaline. So a lot of us are excited about the benefits of running, but then we also might have this nagging voice in our ear that's kind of just like, "You're gonna get hurt."
Speaker 2· Soundbite0:53
Everyone I know that starts to get into running, their body slowly starts to fall apart.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:58
Don't run, period. I'm so tired of saying it. Your knees go, your ankles go, your hip goes.
Ekedi Fausther-Keeys· Host1:05
Running is terrible for you, and anybody who runs a marathon I think needs mental health help. And so today we're running down the science here. We're gonna figure out what actually happens to our bodies when we run, what's going on with our muscles and our joints, and then we're also gonna look into runner's high and figure out, like, what's happening in our brains when this happens. Because when it comes to running, there's a lot of...