ArticleSports medicine - open
Athletes: Fit but Unhealthy?
Article in Sports medicine - open. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- An Intervention of Four Weeks of Time-Restricted Eating (16/8) in Male Long-Distance Runners Does Not Affect Cardiometabolic Risk Factors.Nutrients · 2023Trial
- Inflammation and Perceived Social Support in Elite Athletes (A Quantile Regression Approach).Neuroimmunomodulation · 2026Article
- Multifactorial Patterns of Low Performance Development in German Elite Athletes.Translational sports medicine · 2025Article
- Low carbohydrate high fat ketogenic diets on the exercise crossover point and glucose homeostasis.Frontiers in physiology · 2023Review
- COVID-Related Athletic Deaths: Another Perfect Storm?Frontiers in sports and active living · 2022Article
- Repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on athletes: a cross-sectional study.Biology of sport · 2021Article
- The athletic gut microbiota.Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition · 2020Review
- The Tokyo Olympic Games and the Risk of COVID-19.Current tropical medicine reports · 2020Review
- Maximum Aerobic Function: Clinical Relevance, Physiological Underpinnings, and Practical Application.Frontiers in physiology · 2020Article
- Polarized and Pyramidal Training Intensity Distribution: Relationship with a Half-Ironman Distance Triathlon Competition.Journal of sports science & medicine · 2019Article
- Decision-Making in Health and Fitness.Frontiers in public health · 2019Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
While the words "fit" and "healthy" are often used synonymously in everyday language, the terms have entirely separate meanings. Fitness describes the ability to perform a given exercise task, and health explains a person's state of well-being, where physiological systems work in harmony. Although we typically view athletes as fit and healthy, they often are not. The global term we place on unhealthy athletes is the overtraining syndrome. In this current opinion, we propose that two primary drivers may contribute to the development of the overtraining syndrome, namely high training intensity and the modern-day highly processed, high glycemic diet. Both factors elicit a sympathetic response through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, in turn driving systemic reactive oxygen species production, inflammation, and a metabolic substrate imbalance towards carbohydrate and away from fat oxidation, manifesting in an array of symptoms often labeled as the overtraining syndrome. Ultimately, these symptoms reveal an unhealthy athlete. We argue that practitioners, scientists, and athletes may work towards health and alleviate overtraining syndrome by lowering training intensity and removing processed and/or high glycemic foods from the diet, which together enhance fat oxidation rates. Athletes should be fit and healthy.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.