Brynmaer t1_iznaxvr wrote
I think this interesting and is very much worth studying but playing football professionaly is labor intensive. I wonder what the findings would be if we isolate other labor intensive jobs as well like roofers or brick layers. Would we also find more high blood pressure, arthritis, and dementia?
Secondarily, we could look at the selection bias of professional football players. I would bet we would find that people who reach puberty at younger ages, have higher levels of certain hormones, are naturally taller/larger, and have more "early aging" traits in general may be favored in youth sports because of their earlier development and therefore more likely to play college and pro.
It could be a combo of the physical toll of the sport professionaly AND genetic selection bias of those more likely to play the sport.
Edit: Just finished reading the study and it's genuinely interesting. Hopefully studies like this can be used to find ways to mitigate prevalence of heath issues in the sport. In the end though, I feel that anyone competing in sport at the highest levels will likely find that pushing themselves physically that much is not the easiest path for their bodies. It's a trade-off.
They do acknowledge the possible impact of selection bias within the survey itself. "Third, we acknowledge the possibility of selection bias within the ASF cohort and cannot exclude the possibility that ASF players harbouring more illness may have been more likely to enroll."
Secondly, they acknowledge the impact of position within the sport showing that linemen have much higher reported issues than other positions.
They also acknowledge that it is a self reported survey which may introduce some skewing and that "race" and systemic racism may have a skewing effect. As well, they acknowledge the possible impact of related activities such as strength training, anti inflammatory drugs, and other possible drugs/ related activities.
They also acknowledge that other professional sports including hockey, soccer, and rugby also show increased rates of the selected conditions (but don't mention to what relative degree).
vtssge1968 t1_iznberv wrote
It's extraordinarily hard to separate factors in most health studies, I have always assumed this is why health studies are always coming out contradicting each other and what is supposedly healthy is constantly changing...
vtssge1968 t1_iznbva7 wrote
Genetic factors are often overlooked especially now as it's getting to be politically incorrect to say one nationality is more prone to something then another, I understand the reasoning to some extent, but people that have lived under certain environmental conditions have evolved differently to adapt.. this is most pronounced and is undeniable in certain more isolated populations in extreme environments. Look up Eskimos, and Aborigines.
naijaboiler t1_izng21u wrote
ancestry is scientifically valid. Race is not. Race is not ancestry.
Race is a social construct that is loosely based on ancestry, just as nationality is a political construct that is loosely based on ancestry and geography
vtssge1968 t1_izngwh1 wrote
Exactly my point, I never used the word race and someone immediately points this out, I said nationality which isn't precisely right either, but it has more to do with the region from where the ancestors came from...
IrrelevantPuppy t1_izqr7lq wrote
Exactly. Is it that they are very labor intensive jobs? Is it the lifestyle of a professional football player? Is it the concussions? Is it genetics that arise in correlation with other genetics that make you predisposed to be a good football player? Or is it the heavy steroid use?
nahtorreyous t1_iznnsxt wrote
I would bet it's their diet to maintain the 300+lbs. Most linemen drop significant amount of weight after their playing careers but the extra weight they carry for x amount of years has to take a toll.
SerialStateLineXer t1_iznopi3 wrote
It's worth noting that "early diabetes and hypertension" was driven entirely by the 25-29 age group. In older age groups, former football players had lower rates of diabetes and hypertension than the general population, and even lower rates of diabetes than former football players in the 25-29 bracket. This is possibly just a fluke, or, as you mentioned, driven by selection bias.
The more striking difference is the rates of arthritis and early onset dementia, which was large and consistent across all age groups. 2% of former football players had dementia in their 50s, but only 0.2% of the general population did. Both of these are very plausibly attributable to physical trauma experienced during play.
So I don't think there's any real mystery here. The elevated rate of diabetes and hypertension in the 25-29 group is probably spurious, while physical trauma explains the rest.
Brynmaer t1_iznpit4 wrote
Yeah. That's a striking difference that is unlikely to be purely reporting or selection bias. It would be interesting to further differentiate by position to try and narrow down the possible variables. Like, do punters see similar numbers? Do corners? There is so much speciation in football by position when it comes to body size and play style that it could yield some results that may help the game adjust to mitigate some things.
ineed_that t1_iznekcn wrote
I wonder how much of that is just due to high insulin resistance. That could explain the dementia, blood pressure , maybe even the supposed age related diseases. Those guys bulk like crazy and consume an insane amount of carbs and processed food. Exercise by itself can’t reverse that
Curious_Teapot t1_izokgzh wrote
I’m pretty sure dementia is the result of head injuries, not the level of exertion.Contact sports players are at higher risk of developing Lewy body disease, and as we know Lewy bodies are highly implicated in dementia. Lewy Body dementia is the second most common type of dementia after Alzheimer’s
Brynmaer t1_izpld1e wrote
Head injuries is not a bad supposition at all but that's why the science is being done.
Is dementia more common amongst ALL player or just certain positions?
Does being a larger person in general contribute to rates of dementia?
Are there other genetic factors that make someone more likely to be successful as a professional football player that also contribute to likelihood of dementia?
Are all head injuries more likely to lead to dementia or are there certain types that do? Are a handful of bigger hits to the head over a career more or less damaging than a lot of smaller head hits sustained consistently over a career?
Understanding all of the possible mechanisms can help inform players and possibly help tweak rules to mitigate the known risk factors through rule changes.
learningdesigner t1_izozc8u wrote
I haven't read the study, so hopefully you would know more about this. But, is obesity one of the main problems that this study is finding, or is it other stuff? My possibly incorrect though is that yeah, if you are obese and also practicing professional football every day, you are probably fine and healthy when it comes to diseases like diabetes. But once you stop doing labor intensive work everyday, those benefits might go away. At the end of the day, it is still unhealthy weight that affects a lot of this stuff.
Or, I could be very off base with that too.
Brynmaer t1_izpm6e1 wrote
I'm sure the large size of linemen is contributing to the worse outcomes they seem to experience in relation to the other positions. Larger people still have the same size joints and bones. Their cardiovascular system would have to grow to supply a larger body with enough oxygen. All of that can contribute to arthritis, high blood pressure, etc.
It seems like the study is mostly finding a generic link between playing a contact sport at a very high level and some advanced aging outcomes over time. They further find that linemen as a group are experiencing a larger proportion of those advanced aging outcomes relative to other positions.
They say that there could be many factors involved and that further study to isolate those factors is needed. This study simply makes a link between professional football and advanced aging on some areas related to health.
lsjunior t1_izozqzz wrote
Think biggest difference between other kabor intensive jobs and NFL lineman would be the eating habbits. General laborers arent trying to maintain a specific weight. Where lineman are usually consuming massive amounts of calories to maintain their playing weight. You see all the time a retired lineman a year or 2 after retirement and they have lost a significant amount of weight and its simply from they don't eat as much as they used to. I remember one story where a team wanted a tackle to gain 10 pounds. He said he would eat something over 7k calories. Late night snack would be a gallon of ice cream and he lost a half a pound over a week of training camp.
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