In summary for most of us here: Yes.
Sex: Male
Height >6ft
Age: 45 - 65
Endurance activity a week >6hrs
Years in sport >21
What I’m not quite sure about, does it matter? Is arrhythmia serious? They are clear in the podcast that any amount of activity is better than none. Just not sure how bad “too much” activity is.
From a sample of one - me - yes to both of those answers. Having a stroke caused by undiagnosed atrial fibrillation did matter - it wasn’t nice but I was lucky that my stroke was minor compared to many others and I recovered quickly. But the AF is still there despite 2 (failed) cardiac ablations so it impacts on my exercise levels. And being on anticoagulants to prevent any future stroke is not nice as every time you cut yourself you bleed - a lot.
Following Betteridges Law of Headlines: No
That’s just a #ScienceFact
Depends. They can can vary from harmless to life threatening.
I think that the world’s definition of endurance athlete and my definition are a long way apart.
Have I accumulated more than 1500 hours of vigorous activity in the past 20 years? I have done over 1600 hours in the past 2 years
Luckily I am under 180cm tall and only been execising for 9 years - although I have done around 6,000 hours during this time
I was shocked when they said the line for endurance athlete was 4-6 hours per week. I guess we forget how far outside the normal distribution we are. But most people riding their bike at the weekend and doing something else during the week are going to hit that.
But if you look for people who do that with proper consistency over years and extrapolate across the population. I bet it’s still a pretty small number.
What this type of thing doesn’t capture (having not read it) is where people who do manual jobs fit in. That can be hours and hours per week of elevated HR, activity etc. That surely would bring the number up a fair bit?
Another study published last month shows a strong link between lack of sleep and AF
Poor Night’s Sleep Can Trigger Atrial Fibrillation the Next Day | UC San Francisco.
It could be that many “endurance” athletes do not get enough sleep.
So the question is, if I train 12+ hours per week, but sleep 8+ hours per night, are my chances of developing AF any greater?
Don’t worry, it’s a podcast, you don’t have to read anything…
The studies done relate to endurance athletes, and they specifically reference cyclists, runners, rowers and XC skiers in the piece. While I suspect you are right about manual labour jobs, (i) they didn’t form part of these studies - not to say none have been done and (ii) there may be an element of sustained elevated HR required, not more sporadic elevated jumps you get from bouts of hard work.
Compared to most people even just walking from your car into maccies is exercise!
Been meaning to post the initial report from the study I’m on but it’s in medical speak that fruity and Chris will think is normal, heavy reading and looking up terms for the rest of us.
Bottom line on all of this from my perspective is that we all have different levels of too much, but ultimately not exercising is a bigger killer.
that 
I think that the general consensus on development of any form of arrhythmia is that there is usually no single definitive cause. It’s a combination of many factors which can include endurance training, alcohol, diabetes, smoking, obesity, genetics etc etc - which one is the trigger is the unknown.
At the end of the day you’re going to die so on the way have fun in the best way you can.
The “bathtub” curve was mentioned, going from nothing to something reduces your risk significantly. But going from something to too much does increase the risk. As you say, by how much is going to be individual.
Oh FFS, that’s me right there. Every single one of them 
Mrs W might get lucky with that £900k life insurance policy after all
Apparently she’s signed you up for 4 Ironman races next year so you need to start training 
In addition, and just to better stack the odds, I fully recomend carnivor diet and no sleep (why sleep when you could be training)
Bumped into someone I know while out for a wander earlier, he’s had heart problems for quite a while now. He’s only 64 and has just had his sixth ablation! Had to go private though as the waiting time was going to be so long, he was due to see a consultant which got cancelled due to the strike.
He was pretty good athlete when he was young as well.
Get a piece of paper, write the numbers 55 to 105 on it, turn over, stick a pin in it. Turn over again, number with a hole in it is when you may die. Medical science has a similar level of accuracy.
(If you are a fat lazy slob, save effort and improve your prediction by not bothering to write any number above 79).
My mum was a long distance swimmer, did 4 Comrades, and then swapped to cycling when crumbling bones curtailed the running, her last update following an ECG was that she had slight arrhythmia, slight inconsistencies, slight concerns all round but all the doctors are much more impressed with her lung function, her mile swim everyday and her ability to look after herself at 77 years old. We’re all going to die one day.
Arrhythmia isn’t good but not moving and not maintaining fitness is much much worse.
I’m afraid the BBC needs to start shouting about the T2D problem and ignore this stuff. Other media outlets are starting to, it just needs to be loud and clear now.
They’re scared they upset people given T2 is largely self inflicted.
PS, I’m agreeing with you!
You make it sound like the whole field is quacks purely guessing.
And then contradict yourself in the next sentence, so I’m confused about your viewpoint.
Any field that deals in risk will never know which number you’ll pick. It manipulates how many times each number are on the paper though.