RUSH: Here’s Dave, Aventura, Florida. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Nice to talk to you again, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I love the way you articulated the history behind health care yesterday. That really helped a lot. But what I wanted to get to was that you had mentioned something about the longevity of runners in an earlier research study?

RUSH: That’s correct.

CALLER: By the way, I agree with you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir. I’m happy to have people on the team. It’s a great feeling.

CALLER: And basically what I’m trying to tell you is heart disease is not a disease of performance. It’s just a separate topology like leukemia, cancer, anything else like that. And for those people that are spending time running or treadmills, ellipticals, bicycles —

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! You’re saying heart disease is not a disease of performance?

CALLER: Not.

RUSH: It’s a separate pathology like leukemia or cancer?

CALLER: The pathology does not adapt to improved performance. The person that —

RUSH: So you mean getting on a treadmill is not a cure or a fix for heart disease?

CALLER: It’s the antithesis of a fix to heart disease.

RUSH: It may make it worse, huh?

CALLER: It’s useless. The only reason that you would get on a treadmill — and they’re doing this out in California — is to run the power to the gym itself. Otherwise it’s wasted energy. The only adaptation, Rush, occurs in your muscles not your heart.

RUSH: What you’re describing are human hamsters.

CALLER: The heart is a slave to the muscles.

RUSH: I mean, they’re on the treadmill to power the gym? That’s pretty funny.

CALLER: Absolutely. That’s what I was told last year.

RUSH: Well, I don’t know. You’re from Aventura, Florida. In Aventura, you may not know this. Aventura’s where… (interruption) No, that’s Atlantis. The heart research hospital, that’s Atlantis, not Aventura. But he’s got a point. Here’s what he’s talking about. It’s CBS News out of Washington, and here it is. I mentioned it in the first hour. “Going for runs on a regular basis has been linked to a multitude of health benefits in countless research studies, but recent research suggests that too much running is tied to a shorter life span.”

Not “can be.”

Not “could be.”

Not “might be.”

It “is tied to a shorter life span. The study results revealed on Sunday by Dr. Martin Matsumura, co-director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Lehigh Valley Health Network, found that people who get no exercise along with people considered high-mileage runners both have shorter life spans than those considered to be running an average amount — although the researchers note that the reasons are still somewhat unclear.”

Really?

They seem pretty clear to me.

What would be hard to figure out about this, if it’s right?

People who get no exercise along with people that go all the time, shorter life spans than those considered to be running an average amount. It’s the old moderation argument. You know, the fatter the butt, the bigger the heart disease. That’s the thinking on — (interruption) Yeah. Bigger the butt, the badder the heart disease. Meaning, if you sit on your butt all day long you’re gonna have heart disease. Now, these guys are coming around so you counter it, get out there and you start jogging, you start running and get healthy. And these people have done research, “Nope, nope, nope, nope, it’s not true.”

“Dr. Matsumura and his colleagues –” and that’s the correct way to pronounce it, by the way, if you’re an elitist. It’s not colleagues. You watch, it’s colleagues. Particularly European elites, your colleagues.

“Dr. Matsumura and his colleagues reviewed datafrom over 3,800 male and female runners who participated in the Masters Running Study, a web-based study of health and training for runners over the age of 35. Nearly 70 percent of the runners self-reported running more than 20 miles each week, and the average of the of the high-mileage runners was 42 years of age. Information regarding use of painkillers and prescription medicines were compiled with heart risk factors, diabetes, high blood pressure and family history of chronic illness.”

I mean, they went deep here.

“But the study authors said none of these factors explained the shorter lifespans associated with high-mileage runners versus moderate runners. … He said there may simply be ‘too much wear and tear,’ CBS News reports. He said the ‘sweet spot’ for running is a slow to moderate pace for a total of about 2.5 hours each week.”

I love reporting this kind of news. It just confuses people. Everybody thinks that the more you run, the healthier you are, the longer you’ll live.