RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Healthspan and chronic disease burden among young adult and middle-aged male former American-style professional football players
JF British Journal of Sports Medicine
JO Br J Sports Med
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine
SP 166
OP 171
DO 10.1136/bjsports-2022-106021
VO 57
IS 3
A1 Rachel Grashow
A1 Taylor Valencia Shaffer-Pancyzk
A1 Inana Dairi
A1 Hang Lee
A1 Dean Marengi, Jr
A1 Jillian Baker
A1 Marc G Weisskopf
A1 Frank E Speizer
A1 Alicia J Whittington
A1 Herman A Taylor, Jr
A1 Dylan Keating
A1 Adam Tenforde
A1 James Sawalla Guseh
A1 Meagan M Wasfy
A1 Ross Zafonte
A1 Aaron Baggish
YR 2023
UL http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/57/3/166.abstract
AB Objective To examine the relationships between age, healthspan and chronic illness among former professional American-style football (ASF) players.Methods We compared age-specific race-standardised and body mass index-standardised prevalence ratios of arthritis, dementia/Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension and diabetes among early adult and middle-aged (range 25–59 years) male former professional ASF players (n=2864) with a comparator cohort from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and National Health Interview Survey, two representative samples of the US general population. Age was stratified into 25–29, 30–39, 40–49 and 50–59 years.Results Arthritis and dementia/Alzheimer’s disease were more prevalent among ASF players across all study age ranges (all p<0.001). In contrast, hypertension and diabetes were more prevalent among ASF players in the youngest age stratum only (p<0.001 and p<0.01, respectively). ASF players were less likely to demonstrate intact healthspan (ie, absence of chronic disease) than the general population across all age ranges.Conclusion These data suggest the emergence of a maladaptive early ageing phenotype among former professional ASF players characterised by premature burden of chronic disease and reduced healthspan. Additional study is needed to investigate these findings and their impact on morbidity and mortality in former ASF players and other athlete groups.No data are available.