I've got to give the guy respect for giving references with his arguments but I don't think his sources are sufficient to suggest that marathon running is bad for you.
It's a shame he loses much of that respect as we near reason #1 and they get increasingly 'silly'.
Let's take #2: "At least four particiants of the Boston Marathon have died of brain cancer in the past 10 years. Purely anecdotal, but consistent with the elevated S100beta counts and TKN-alpha measures. Perhaps also connected to the microthrombi of the endothelium found in marathoners."
I can't quickly find numbers for the preceding years, nor how many each year had run it previously, so lets assume the numbers increased linearly over the preceding 10 years to give a total number of runners as 100,000. That, rather conveniently, suggests 15 - 20 incidents of brain cancer should result. Shock result - marathon running prevents brain cancer!
#1 is the first runner of the marathon, Phidippides, died. Hopefully I don't need to explain why this one is silly.
Some of his other points would be worth further study but I can't find a single point without weaknesses.
I've just noticed I'm comparing cases with deaths. Clearly some people will survive brain cancer.
The death rate would appear to be 5.6 per 100,000 according to this source neuro-oncology.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/6/3/179.pdf
It is worth noting that this is the annual rate suggesting that 5 runners of the Boston marathon should have died from brain cancer in the last year alone.
As I poorly stated in my initial comment I am aware of this problem. My hope was that by assuming virtually nobody ran the race 10 years ago, which I assume/hope is totally inaccurate, the two errors would cancel each other out.
It's a 'back-of-a-napkin' calculation. Certainly not accurate but a nice place to start for future refactoring.
It's a shame he loses much of that respect as we near reason #1 and they get increasingly 'silly'.
Let's take #2: "At least four particiants of the Boston Marathon have died of brain cancer in the past 10 years. Purely anecdotal, but consistent with the elevated S100beta counts and TKN-alpha measures. Perhaps also connected to the microthrombi of the endothelium found in marathoners."
I'm researching this with google but, "In the United States, the annual incidence of brain cancer generally is 15-20 cases per 100,000 people." http://www.oncologychannel.com/braincancer/index.shtml "In 2007 more than 20000 runners completed the race." http://www.bostonmarathon.org/
I can't quickly find numbers for the preceding years, nor how many each year had run it previously, so lets assume the numbers increased linearly over the preceding 10 years to give a total number of runners as 100,000. That, rather conveniently, suggests 15 - 20 incidents of brain cancer should result. Shock result - marathon running prevents brain cancer!
#1 is the first runner of the marathon, Phidippides, died. Hopefully I don't need to explain why this one is silly.
Some of his other points would be worth further study but I can't find a single point without weaknesses.