Important quotes from that video: “You can exercise all day, it seems, if you keep it down.” And “let me be clear about this: there is no single step you can take in your life to ensure robust health and remarkable longevity than a habit of daily exercise.”
FWIW, there are some more recent studies that flatly contradict this claim [1] [2], so YMMV with a TED talk. My father has been a long-distance runner for 50 years, and he thinks that it is possible to do heart damage in very extreme cases, but these cases including being more committed than most Olympic athletes. The problem is when doing competitive racing type running without ever taking a break for recovery. He does know a couple of people who ran too fast and too much and had to quit due to what he calls “overtraining syndrome”. He specifically said he thinks Deo Kato isn’t likely running fast enough to cause overtraining syndrome. In the video, you might notice the data he shows depends on running pace; In the TED video, James didn’t separate miles per week from pace (at for example ~6:50). This means that distance alone - miles per week - doesn’t necessarily prove anything, miles might not be associated with risks until it’s enough miles that there’s no time left to rest.
There is a real danger here of scaring people who should exercise more, of giving the wrong impression or a backwards summary to the vast majority of people who will never ever run the risk of over-exercising so much they could cause heart damage. Your summary left out the part where James pointed to the absolute consensus that an hour a day of “vigorous” exercise is known without a doubt to be very beneficial. There’s also a danger of giving a misleading impression about the risks of not exercising compared to the risks of extreme exercise. The data in the video at ~5:10 shows not exercising leading to dying many years earlier, while there is no data here that shows extreme exercise leading to higher mortality; all it shows is that the benefits plateau. There’s some data and discussion on incidence of heart problems, but not outcomes. Essentially the summary should be: exercise all you want, and if you are wondering if you’re exercising too much, then you’re nowhere near the threshold - the very few people exercising enough to do heart damage are extreme and already know they exercise too much, because they’re compromising on work, hobbies, friends, and family in order to exercise. ;)
FWIW, there are some more recent studies that flatly contradict this claim [1] [2], so YMMV with a TED talk. My father has been a long-distance runner for 50 years, and he thinks that it is possible to do heart damage in very extreme cases, but these cases including being more committed than most Olympic athletes. The problem is when doing competitive racing type running without ever taking a break for recovery. He does know a couple of people who ran too fast and too much and had to quit due to what he calls “overtraining syndrome”. He specifically said he thinks Deo Kato isn’t likely running fast enough to cause overtraining syndrome. In the video, you might notice the data he shows depends on running pace; In the TED video, James didn’t separate miles per week from pace (at for example ~6:50). This means that distance alone - miles per week - doesn’t necessarily prove anything, miles might not be associated with risks until it’s enough miles that there’s no time left to rest.
There is a real danger here of scaring people who should exercise more, of giving the wrong impression or a backwards summary to the vast majority of people who will never ever run the risk of over-exercising so much they could cause heart damage. Your summary left out the part where James pointed to the absolute consensus that an hour a day of “vigorous” exercise is known without a doubt to be very beneficial. There’s also a danger of giving a misleading impression about the risks of not exercising compared to the risks of extreme exercise. The data in the video at ~5:10 shows not exercising leading to dying many years earlier, while there is no data here that shows extreme exercise leading to higher mortality; all it shows is that the benefits plateau. There’s some data and discussion on incidence of heart problems, but not outcomes. Essentially the summary should be: exercise all you want, and if you are wondering if you’re exercising too much, then you’re nowhere near the threshold - the very few people exercising enough to do heart damage are extreme and already know they exercise too much, because they’re compromising on work, hobbies, friends, and family in order to exercise. ;)
[1] https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/ex...
[2] https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2019/e...
PS you’re not the Andrew Stuart of Sudoku/puzzle fame are you?