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Hi,
Many of you may or may not be aware Blood Pressure is the "silent killer". Heart disease is the top killer in the US with the most mortality rates. Obviously, there is diet and exercise, which I'm sure any physician will tell you to do; however, I fear the risks are higher with the gaming industry.
I don't know about you, but I'm 37 and played this game since 2000 (BW) and I look in the mirror and my face is bright red after playing a 40 minute game with continuous back-and-forth interaction. I do have high blood pressure and I take medication, but I know these spikes in heart rate are not good. I've also been diagnosed with premature carpal tunnel after playing 10's of thousands of games.
With Geoff dying this year, I think there are many things the younger generation needs to be concerned about. I've been gaming solidly for 20 years and I'm starting to see the risks involved. Although working in the corporate world, I look at myself, and start to see how my hobby has impacted my health - which will be amplified for any progamer.
Thanks for reading
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/282929.php#heart-disease
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Well, beeing highly concentrated and adrenaline rushing through your veins is nothing negative. Rather it is a very positive thing. But ofc it is limited to the time you are under pressure, be it at Starcraft or some regular exercising.
High blood pressure comes from beeing overweight, alcohol, too much salt and stress. So it's not the gaming that kills you but rather what in can bring with it (in some cases) : Frozen pizza, coke and redbull, sitting in a chair 12 hours a day,...
Just keep a nice life balance and high blood pressure should not be a problem, regardless if you like to play games or not
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Czech Republic12133 Posts
On December 13 2019 17:31 Harris1st wrote:
Well, beeing highly concentrated and adrenaline rushing through your veins is nothing negative. Rather it is a very positive thing. But ofc it is limited to the time you are under pressure, be it at Starcraft or some regular exercising.
High blood pressure comes from beeing overweight, alcohol, too much salt and stress. So it's not the gaming that kills you but rather what in can bring with it (in some cases) : Frozen pizza, coke and redbull, sitting in a chair 12 hours a day,...
Just keep a nice life balance and high blood pressure should not be a problem, regardless if you like to play games or not
Also not everybody lives in the US, blood pressure is a pretty regular starting point of a doctor visit in CZE  Especially if you know that *everybody* who's employed has a preliminary check and then every 3 years for the LOWEST risk employees.
So, uh, yeah.
Also I definitely agree with the adrenaline thing, i get all the symptoms of having it high after SC2 games. Shaking hands, higher temperature than normal, higher heart beat rate(IIRC I get up to 160 during games(my max is 215 though ))
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Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. I cannot emphasize this enough to gamers or office people who sit in chairs all day/night. I'm 42 years old and I take a brisk 30-40 minute walk every day, and it helps immensely with my blood pressure and joint stiffness, among other things.
I also have carpal tunnel in my right wrist, and when I'm not playing games I switch to my left hand for mousing to give my right wrist a break.
If you have both high blood pressure and carpal tunnel, listen to your body. If you feel pain or weakness when gaming, STOP for the day or at least take a 30-60 minute break. Don't push yourself unnecessarily.
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Above all else: sleep and diet. Exercise is secondary to those things. You can be regularly active and have high blood pressure. High blood pressure is mostly a symptom of poor diet or stress management. More veggies/fruits, less blood clotters.
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On December 13 2019 17:31 Harris1st wrote:
Well, beeing highly concentrated and adrenaline rushing through your veins is nothing negative. Rather it is a very positive thing. But ofc it is limited to the time you are under pressure, be it at Starcraft or some regular exercising.
High blood pressure comes from beeing overweight, alcohol, too much salt and stress. So it's not the gaming that kills you but rather what in can bring with it (in some cases) : Frozen pizza, coke and redbull, sitting in a chair 12 hours a day,...
Just keep a nice life balance and high blood pressure should not be a problem, regardless if you like to play games or not
Here is where I differ: You can have high blood pressure without being overweight; this is very common. I am not overweight and have high blood pressure. I've talked to several doctors which all say the same thing: "It is the uneven spikes in pressure that's put on your heart that causes damage." Now this is NOT when you exercise. It is when you are sitting that your heart spikes because of gaming, stress, alcohol, salts (like you mentioned).
It is a MISCONCEPTION that high blood pressure is always related to lifestyle (a majority of the time it is) but many times it is not.
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On December 13 2019 20:45 pinky29 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2019 17:31 Harris1st wrote:
Well, beeing highly concentrated and adrenaline rushing through your veins is nothing negative. Rather it is a very positive thing. But ofc it is limited to the time you are under pressure, be it at Starcraft or some regular exercising.
High blood pressure comes from beeing overweight, alcohol, too much salt and stress. So it's not the gaming that kills you but rather what in can bring with it (in some cases) : Frozen pizza, coke and redbull, sitting in a chair 12 hours a day,...
Just keep a nice life balance and high blood pressure should not be a problem, regardless if you like to play games or not Here is where I differ: You can have high blood pressure without being overweight; this is very common. I am not overweight and have high blood pressure. I've talked to several doctors which all say the same thing: "It is the uneven spikes in pressure that's put on your heart that causes damage." Now this is NOT when you exercise. It is when you are sitting that your heart spikes because of gaming, stress, alcohol, salts (like you mentioned). It is a MISCONCEPTION that high blood pressure is always related to lifestyle (a majority of the time it is) but many times it is not.
I think that hypertension, primary hypertension in this case, has a pathophysiology that isn't attributable fully or even mostly attributable to "uneven spikes in pressure". It is very complex, and not fully understood based on current literature regardless of what several doctors or other reliable bodies of evidence have told us. We do know the risk factors for it, though, and I think that is more likely the relationship (if any truly exists) between playing games for hours on end and developing hypertension. That is to say, modifiable risk factors e.g. obesity, salt intake, alcohol, lack of exercise, on top of the non-modifiable ones like your family history and race.
By the way, about your interesting theory about "heart spikes": the closest thing on a physiological level that may match your theory imo is chronic stress, with increased sympathetic and cortisol outflow and long-term vasculopathy. If you stretch that theory way far out, maybe you'll find some relevance there. Point acknowledged about people who get hypertension even though they're not obese, although of course the non-modifiable components such as genes/familial predisposition need to be put into question there.
Let's not run away from the fact that being obese and having all those poor lifestyle habits make you substantially more likely to get hypertension on top of the usual silent killers e.g. diabetes and hyperlipidemia.
In any case - the bottomline here seems to be that no matter how hazy the evidence is, a person who plays a lot of computer games all day long would probably fare a lot better against the risk of metabolic syndrome and the likes if they don't just simply sit on their arse, eat unhealthily and grow really fat.
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What has this got to do with esports? If your face is bright red after playing a 40 minute game, it's more likely that any physical extertion would make you bright red.
There are a lot of causes of high blood pressure, but gaming is actually not one of them. Though the stereotype lifestyle might be. Poor diet, lack of excercise, caffeine, smoking, lack of sleep, overweight are all factors that raises the risk of high blood pressure and all of them are exclusive of gaming.
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On December 13 2019 18:43 Chris_Havoc wrote:
Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. I cannot emphasize this enough to gamers or office people who sit in chairs all day/night. I'm 42 years old and I take a brisk 30-40 minute walk every day, and it helps immensely with my blood pressure and joint stiffness, among other things.
I also have carpal tunnel in my right wrist, and when I'm not playing games I switch to my left hand for mousing to give my right wrist a break.
If you have both high blood pressure and carpal tunnel, listen to your body. If you feel pain or weakness when gaming, STOP for the day or at least take a 30-60 minute break. Don't push yourself unnecessarily.
This is very true, when I was younger and practiced no sports I would suffer the same symptoms op is talking about. After getting familiarized with exercising (jogging, abdominal, push-up and strength training) a lot of these issues went away and I am no longer under such high pressure when I play. Sports, diet and healthy lifestyle practices really do make a difference, even when playing games such as these.
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On December 13 2019 18:43 Chris_Havoc wrote:
Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. I cannot emphasize this enough to gamers or office people who sit in chairs all day/night. I'm 42 years old and I take a brisk 30-40 minute walk every day, and it helps immensely with my blood pressure and joint stiffness, among other things.
I also have carpal tunnel in my right wrist, and when I'm not playing games I switch to my left hand for mousing to give my right wrist a break.
If you have both high blood pressure and carpal tunnel, listen to your body. If you feel pain or weakness when gaming, STOP for the day or at least take a 30-60 minute break. Don't push yourself unnecessarily.
It's a combination of a few factors:
1) Poor Diet
2) Lack of Exercise
3) Higher Stress Lower Sleep
4) Sedentary
I'm going to say that you can exercise and still be "sedentary". I need a better word for it, but what I mean is that if you sit all day and go run for 90', that's much better than doing nothing, but arguably worse than if you moved regularly throughout the day never sitting more than 20'-30' at a time.
Regular movement is a big deal, you have to turn it into a habit to get up out of your chair all the time. One game and then go move around for 30 seconds or a minute. Regular short breaks at work if you have a desk job, etc.
Everyone knows what's up with exercise. Some aerobic, some strength bases. Doesn't need to be much, 3-5 hours a week is PLENTY.
Stress is pretty well know, and probably the hardest to change.
Sleep is underrated but plays a huge role in all of these things. The difference between 6 and 7.5 hours a night of sleep is massive in every study I've ever seen. Also, many sleep in on the weekends thinking that helps. It doesn't, in fact it appears to make the problem worse. You get more sleep, yes, but mess up your sleep cycle and then sleep quality drops along with regulation of things like hormones and blood sugar and you end up worse off.
Diet is probably king. Everybody has their different ideas, but the general portion of consensus usually is:
1) Cut out refined oils: stick to EVOO, coconut oil, grass fed butter etc. No refined or seed oils.
2) High vegetable intake: 8-10+ servings a day. Most people are lucky to get half or a third of that
3) Eliminate/Drastically reduce processed food, anything packaged or prepared.
Do those three things and your diet starts to be pretty healthy.
If eating meat:
1) Increase the amount of seafood
2) Use grass fed products
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On December 13 2019 23:07 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
What has this got to do with esports? If your face is bright red after playing a 40 minute game, it's more likely that any physical extertion would make you bright red.
There are a lot of causes of high blood pressure, but gaming is actually not one of them. Though the stereotype lifestyle might be. Poor diet, lack of excercise, caffeine, smoking, lack of sleep, overweight are all factors that raises the risk of high blood pressure and all of them are exclusive of gaming.
Except being sedentary, which is a huge risk factor. You can get up and move around between games, so it's technically exclusive of gaming...but generally isn't.
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On December 13 2019 18:18 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2019 17:31 Harris1st wrote:
Well, beeing highly concentrated and adrenaline rushing through your veins is nothing negative. Rather it is a very positive thing. But ofc it is limited to the time you are under pressure, be it at Starcraft or some regular exercising.
High blood pressure comes from beeing overweight, alcohol, too much salt and stress. So it's not the gaming that kills you but rather what in can bring with it (in some cases) : Frozen pizza, coke and redbull, sitting in a chair 12 hours a day,...
Just keep a nice life balance and high blood pressure should not be a problem, regardless if you like to play games or not Also not everybody lives in the US, blood pressure is a pretty regular starting point of a doctor visit in CZE Especially if you know that *everybody* who's employed has a preliminary check and then every 3 years for the LOWEST risk employees. So, uh, yeah. Also I definitely agree with the adrenaline thing, i get all the symptoms of having it high after SC2 games. Shaking hands, higher temperature than normal, higher heart beat rate(IIRC I get up to 160 during games(my max is 215 though ))
What?!
Is this like tournament stress in some major career defining game you're trying to win? Or is it a semi-common experience?
I've never seen higher than 50% of max, period, and my normal values gaming would be around 25-30% of max. In good shape, but definitely cannot imagine my HR being 75% of max sitting there playing a game.
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On December 14 2019 04:39 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2019 18:18 deacon.frost wrote:On December 13 2019 17:31 Harris1st wrote:
Well, beeing highly concentrated and adrenaline rushing through your veins is nothing negative. Rather it is a very positive thing. But ofc it is limited to the time you are under pressure, be it at Starcraft or some regular exercising.
High blood pressure comes from beeing overweight, alcohol, too much salt and stress. So it's not the gaming that kills you but rather what in can bring with it (in some cases) : Frozen pizza, coke and redbull, sitting in a chair 12 hours a day,...
Just keep a nice life balance and high blood pressure should not be a problem, regardless if you like to play games or not Also not everybody lives in the US, blood pressure is a pretty regular starting point of a doctor visit in CZE Especially if you know that *everybody* who's employed has a preliminary check and then every 3 years for the LOWEST risk employees. So, uh, yeah. Also I definitely agree with the adrenaline thing, i get all the symptoms of having it high after SC2 games. Shaking hands, higher temperature than normal, higher heart beat rate(IIRC I get up to 160 during games(my max is 215 though )) What?! Is this like tournament stress in some major career defining game you're trying to win? Or is it a semi-common experience? I've never seen higher than 50% of max, period, and my normal values gaming would be around 25-30% of max. In good shape, but definitely cannot imagine my HR being 75% of max sitting there playing a game.
My blood pressure is lower than average, but this post is incredibly ignorant. Obviously, everyone is different so what's normal to you might not be normal for someone else. You might have perfect blood pressure but terrible teeth, yet the other person could have vice versa of that. It's facts of life.
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On December 14 2019 04:34 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2019 23:07 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
What has this got to do with esports? If your face is bright red after playing a 40 minute game, it's more likely that any physical extertion would make you bright red.
There are a lot of causes of high blood pressure, but gaming is actually not one of them. Though the stereotype lifestyle might be. Poor diet, lack of excercise, caffeine, smoking, lack of sleep, overweight are all factors that raises the risk of high blood pressure and all of them are exclusive of gaming. Except being sedentary, which is a huge risk factor. You can get up and move around between games, so it's technically exclusive of gaming...but generally isn't. There has no been no real conclusive evidence that being sedentary isolated from all other factors increases the risk to high blood pressure, in the same way that a lack of excercise has been. It's not the playing of games that gives you high blood pressure. And yes, you can get up and move in between games. Don't you need to goto the toilet?
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On December 14 2019 06:06 SC-Shield wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2019 04:39 L_Master wrote:On December 13 2019 18:18 deacon.frost wrote:On December 13 2019 17:31 Harris1st wrote:
Well, beeing highly concentrated and adrenaline rushing through your veins is nothing negative. Rather it is a very positive thing. But ofc it is limited to the time you are under pressure, be it at Starcraft or some regular exercising.
High blood pressure comes from beeing overweight, alcohol, too much salt and stress. So it's not the gaming that kills you but rather what in can bring with it (in some cases) : Frozen pizza, coke and redbull, sitting in a chair 12 hours a day,...
Just keep a nice life balance and high blood pressure should not be a problem, regardless if you like to play games or not Also not everybody lives in the US, blood pressure is a pretty regular starting point of a doctor visit in CZE Especially if you know that *everybody* who's employed has a preliminary check and then every 3 years for the LOWEST risk employees. So, uh, yeah. Also I definitely agree with the adrenaline thing, i get all the symptoms of having it high after SC2 games. Shaking hands, higher temperature than normal, higher heart beat rate(IIRC I get up to 160 during games(my max is 215 though )) What?! Is this like tournament stress in some major career defining game you're trying to win? Or is it a semi-common experience? I've never seen higher than 50% of max, period, and my normal values gaming would be around 25-30% of max. In good shape, but definitely cannot imagine my HR being 75% of max sitting there playing a game. My blood pressure is lower than average, but this post is incredibly ignorant. Obviously, everyone is different so what's normal to you might not be normal for someone else. You might have perfect blood pressure but terrible teeth, yet the other person could have vice versa of that. It's facts of life.
I have no idea where you are coming from. What you wrote is absolutely true, except for the part that I bolded which I am clueless how you came to that conclusion.
I shared that I was surprised he saw near 80% of maximum HR playing a game. That's close to threshold for many people, or over it, a very high level of exertion. Noticing that, I then asked what sort of conditions produced that HR value...out of curiosity.
It's definitely not ignorant to share your own experiences, nor to ask questions.
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Bro, do you think Hunky Muscle-Stud Thanos Mastery Bros didn't feel pain when working out? You're making yourself good at something that actually matters. It's a better life than getting pushed around by a nagging other.
In the meantime, pray: To the God of Starcraft Gains. At the church of TL.
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On December 14 2019 06:14 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2019 04:34 L_Master wrote:On December 13 2019 23:07 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
What has this got to do with esports? If your face is bright red after playing a 40 minute game, it's more likely that any physical extertion would make you bright red.
There are a lot of causes of high blood pressure, but gaming is actually not one of them. Though the stereotype lifestyle might be. Poor diet, lack of excercise, caffeine, smoking, lack of sleep, overweight are all factors that raises the risk of high blood pressure and all of them are exclusive of gaming. Except being sedentary, which is a huge risk factor. You can get up and move around between games, so it's technically exclusive of gaming...but generally isn't. There has no been no real conclusive evidence that being sedentary isolated from all other factors increases the risk to high blood pressure, in the same way that a lack of excercise has been. It's not the playing of games that gives you high blood pressure. And yes, you can get up and move in between games. Don't you need to goto the toilet?
I should have caveated by statement a little more stating instead: "which is appearing more and more like a huge risk factor", but my inclination is to take major exception to this statement.
Are you suggesting your so up to date on every prominent medical/scientific journal that you know for certain no such studies exist. I believe there are informed people out there that read a decent amount of literature, but your statement is exceedingly confident, even by such standards.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30763169
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27702747
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30111495
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27208318
https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2091327/sedentary-time-its-association-risk-disease-incidence-mortality-hospitalization-adults
This is a stater pack, there are several dozen other studies all showing these impacts. Some are clinical trials/experimental type studies, some are cohort studies, some are cross sectional studies...and vast majority of them are finding the impact that longer periods of sedentary behavior have, irrespective of exercise or other factors.
For you to say "there has been no real conclusive evidence" is just a massive stretch to me. There is never "conclusive" evidence in epidemiology anyways. Just trends, correlations, etc. Is this pattern as established as the beneficial link between exercise and diabetes or BP? No. Of course not. We've only been suspecting and investigating the sitting link aggressively over perhaps the last decade. What evidence we are getting is generally pointing a pretty consistent picture though.
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How many people died this year due to high blood pressure caused from playing sc2 or any other game?
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On December 14 2019 08:16 WeakOwl wrote:
How many people died this year due to high blood pressure caused from playing sc2 or any other game?
I don't think anyone knows.
But a couple of years ago while playing a different game (Battlerite) the adrenaline from the match caused my blood pressure and heartrate to spike. And I almost died from it.
Of course, I had a preexisting case of hypertension that I wasn't taking seriously. And the increased heart rate from the intense gameplay, well. It ruptured the inner layer of my aorta. It's a miracle I lived through it; Doctor said it's something like one in a billion chances that you don't die within 5 minutes. I somehow lived for a few months with it before I got checked (yay American healthcare system!).
I think instead of cautioning against SC2 or any other e-sports, though, my takeaway is this: If you have high blood pressure? GO TO THE FUCKING DOCTOR. It will kill you.
If you have unexplained shortness of breath? GO TO THE FUCKING DOCTOR. It will kill you.
If you feel pain in your chest or between your shoulder blades during any sort of exertion? GO TO THE FUCKING DOCTOR. It will kill you.
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EPT
