[Arteriosclerosis vascular changes as an expression of the local effect of mechanical continuous stress--observations of the femoral artery of marathon runners].

The arteries of the thigh of 126 male marathon runners at the age of 41.6 +/- 11.3 years were examined with B-Scan-ultrasound. 32 (62.1%) persons were found with arteriosclerotical plaques. All of them were older than 35 years, so the number of arteriosclerosis in this group increases to 36.4 percent (n = 88). 38 persons were younger than 35 years. Persons with plaques started training about 10.9 years later than those without plaques. Correlations of plaques and age, age of starting training, years of training and km/year were found. The numbers of riskfactors showed significant differences between both groups but the correlation of "having no risk factor" and arteriosclerotical plaques was higher than the correlations of nicotine, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and plaques. It seems that marathon running itself is a risk factor of developing arteriosclerotical plaques in the femoral arteries particularly if the age of starting training is higher than 30 years.