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 The study results published in the American Journal of Medicine add
to the concerns over the short- and long-term health risks of the
game, the authors write.
The retired players reported putting on an average of 40 pounds
between their high school football days and the end of their
professional careers. For every 10 pounds gained between high school
and college playing days, or between college and the height of a
professional career, a player's risk of heart disease rose by as
much as 14 percent compared with players whose weight didn't change
much over the same period.
With every 10 pounds gained in those early years, came an additional
15 percent to 25 percent risk of sleep apnea, as well as added risk
of chronic pain and neurocognitive impairment, the study found.
"We think this data suggests that football players, their physicians
and their families should have an active discussion about the role
weight gain plays in their health and football careers," lead author
Timothy W. Churchill of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston,
said in a phone interview.
"An action item for former players who had a great rapidity in
weight gain is they might want to go back and have a general health
check-up and consider overall health maintenance," Churchill told
Reuters Health.
The results are based on episodic surveys of more than 3,500 former
NFL players participating in the Harvard Football Players Health
Study, which is supporting research on the health of current, former
and future NFL players.
The former NFL players were, on average, 53 years old when they
responded to the survey. More than one-third were black and more
than one-third played linemen positions. The average duration of
their professional careers was seven years.
In addition to answering questions about their current overall
health and health history, the retired players were asked about
their weight at specific points in their lives: at the conclusion of
high school football participation, the conclusion of collegiate
football participation, during their professional career and during
retirement.
Twenty percent of the ex-players reported having chronic pain, 25
percent reported having been diagnosed with cardiometabolic diseases
such as diabetes or high cholesterol, 22 percent reported having
sleep apnea, 17 percent reported neurocognitive impairment and 9
percent reported having cardiovascular disease such as
atherosclerosis or history of heart attack or stroke.
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Weight gains between the end of high school and the end of college
playing days, and gains between the end of college and the prime of
a player's professional career were independently associated with
increased risk of these health conditions later in life, the study
found.
The timing of weight gain might matter, said Marion Nestle, Paulette
Goddard professor of nutrition food studies and public health,
emerita, at New York University in New York City. "High weight gain
early has longer to exert metabolic problems," she noted in a phone
interview.
"This is another piece of evidence that football is a high-risk
sport," said Nestle, who wasn't involved in the research.
"These results seem to be consistent with what we have seen
previously in young adults. We know that people who tend to be obese
have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease," said Charlotte Pratt
of the division of cardiovascular sciences at the National Heart,
Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
"We know that early life exposures to unhealthy behaviors have an
impact on cardiovascular risk factors like high blood pressure and
high blood lipids. We need to start early to reduce these risk
factors," Pratt who was not involved in the study, said in a phone
interview.
The study was not designed to prove that weight gain is the cause of
players' later health problems. Another limitation is that since
surveys asked players to recall information from the past, the data
may be subject to recall bias, the authors note.
Pratt said she hopes that future research with NFL players will
focus on clinical research and interventions to reduce health risk
factors in athletes.
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2N0UCNH The American Journal of Medicine,
online August 10, 2018.
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