Too much running may not be good for your heart, says study

Running more than 6km a day could be dangerous to your health, according to a study that examined how much exercise is too much.

Researchers focused on 2,400 heart attack survivors and found that the more exercise they did, the less risk they faced of dying from heart disease - up to a point.

Benefits began to decline among those who ran more than 48km per week. Among walkers, the turning point, when benefits were lost, was seen in those who did more than 74km per week , or about 10km a day.

Even more, there was a statistically significant cardiovascular risk associated with the highest levels of exercise, said the study led by Paul Williams of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Paul Thompson of the department of cardiology at Hartford Hospital in the US.

"Results suggest that the benefits of running or walking do not accrue indefinitely and that above some level, perhaps 48km per week of running, there is a significant increase in risk," the study, published in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, said.

"Competitive running events also appear to increase the risk of an acute event."