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Table 1.

Disease risks (LCRs relative to HCRs)

Metabolic syndrome (Wisloff et al. 2005) ↓ Hippocampal neurogenesis (Wikgren et al. 2012) Exercise and longevity (Karvinen et al. 2015)
Low physical activity (Novak et al. 2010) Fatty liver disease (Morris et al. 2014) ↑ Susceptibility to infectivity (Feng et al. 2015)
Response to training (Lessard et al. 2011) Alzheimer's neurodegeneration (Choi et al. 2014) ↓ Metabolic flexibility (Overmyer et al. 2015)
Premature aging (Koch et al. 2011) ↑ Vulnerability to ventricular fibrillation (Hoydal et al. 2014) Inducible cancer (H Thompson, unpubl.)

As predicted by the “energy transfer hypothesis” (ETH), disease risks segregated with selection for low-capacity runners (LCRs) and resistance to disease segregated with selection for high-capacity runners (HCRs).