We all know that exercise is good for us, and most of us spend our lives in an over-sedentary way, not taking any exercise, and laying up trouble for the future. However, a rather scary article in the BMJ (p422) highlights the risk of some more extreme forms of exercise. Triathlons are one of those more testing and varied forms of extreme sport. The BMJ reports on a paper in the Annals of Internal Medicine which highlights the risks of death – which are small – but it is a risk of death! The average risk was 1.74/100000, mostly associated with the swimming section, trebled in men, and up to 18.6/100000 in men over 60. Take from this what you want. There is a rumour that Prof Henderson and Dr Blythe recently attempted to swim from Clevedon to Cardiff but Prof Purdy forbade them, because of the risk to the programme.
On a lighter note, it seems that an Irish drug firm are transferring their business to the Saint Regis Mohawk tribe in the US. American Indian tribes have sovereign status in the US and the drug company hopes this will protect their patents. The BMJ suggests this behaviour might be called “mohawking”.