It is not rare to hear a news story about an athlete experiencing a cardiac episode on a playing field. Whether at high school, college, or in the professional leagues, these events often occur suddenly and can be a medical emergency.

Professionals tackled the link between the heart and sports at a series of workshops held in 2024, including ones in Washington, DC, Boston, and London.

The most common heart conditions in athletes are the aptly named “athlete’s heart,” a form of harmless cardiomyopathy, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is dangerous. Although they appear similar on electrocardiograms and share certain signs, a health care provider can distinguish between these two conditions.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is an inherited condition caused by a genetic mutation. It impacts heart health and can be fatal during sports activities, causing sudden death.

Recent professional meetings addressed these clinical issues with the aim of better preventing these conditions and sudden cardiac death in young adults through:

Health professionals in the field of cardiology are not the only ones who should be aware of these conditions. So should physicians in other specialties, including primary care, which is often the gateway to the health care system.

Athlete’s heart is a type of cardiomyopathy caused by intense athletic training. It is the name for the changes that occur in the heart when you do strenuous exercise for more than one hour every day.

Most of the time, these changes are not excessive. However, in some athletes, they can make the heart look like how it does when you have a form of cardiomyopathy. Since some types of cardiomyopathy, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, are not harmless, your health care provider needs to know why athlete’s heart looks different.

Here is a summary of the key differences between the two conditions:

This condition is related to the body’s need for oxygen: obviously, you need more when you exercise. To meet this greater demand, the left ventricle handles more blood and pressure than normal, pumping oxygen‑rich blood to the aorta, which then sends it to the body.

After satisfying the body’s need for more blood and oxygen for a time, the left ventricle starts to enlarge and develop a thicker heart muscle.

When you are not exercising, your heart does not need to pump as much blood. It can pump what it needs at a lower heart rate. That is why people with athlete’s heart have a lower resting heart rate than non‑athletes.

Athlete’s heart does not cause symptoms. You most likely have a different heart problem if you feel chest pain or palpitations.

A health care provider can diagnose this condition based on certain signs and symptoms, such as:

This is in addition to imaging and stress tests that provide a complete clinical picture.

Athlete’s heart does not require treatment. However, your health care provider may ask you to stop training for three months and redo the heart imaging test to make sure you do not have cardiomyopathy.

In most people, the heart returns to a normal size after they stop training so intensely. However, a study found that 20% of former athletes still had a large left ventricle five years later.

Since athlete’s heart is the heart’s normal response to intense aerobic exercise, you do not need to reduce the risk of it because it is not a dangerous condition.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is an inherited condition that causes thickening of the myocardium (heart muscle). Sometimes, only one part of the heart is thicker than the rest.

This thickening can make it difficult for blood to leave the heart, forcing it to work harder to pump blood. It can also make it harder for the heart to relax and fill with blood.

Some people with this condition may not have symptoms. They may first discover they have this problem during a routine medical exam.

In many young adults, the first symptom of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is sudden fainting and possibly death, usually occurring during physical activity. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is actually the most common cause of death in athletes. These events may be caused by highly abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias). They may also be caused by a blockage that prevents outflow of blood from the heart to the rest of the body.

An inherited heart disease can cause symptoms like:

As some of those affected do not have symptoms, sometimes the first time a family learns that they have an inherited heart disease is after a sudden cardiac death.

There are also other emerging risks that have been discussed in cardiovascular health workshops.

There are 8 million active athletes in the United States alone, from colleges to professional leagues. And there are billions more worldwide.

What’s more, today a significant number of young athletes are at risk of hypertension, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Care of the Athletic Heart conference, which took place in Washington.

The articles say that, when it comes to these conditions, equating youth with health has led many to overlook life‑saving diagnoses and risk factors in young adults.