RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Recreational football for disease prevention and treatment in untrained men: a narrative review examining cardiovascular health, lipid profile, body composition, muscle strength and functional capacity 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 568 OP 576 DO 10.1136/bjsports-2015-094781 VO 49 IS 9 A1 Jens Bangsbo A1 Peter Riis Hansen A1 Jiri Dvorak A1 Peter Krustrup YR 2015 UL http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/9/568.abstract AB Over the past 10 years, researchers have studied the effects of recreational football training as a health-promoting activity for participants across the lifespan. This has important public health implications as over 400 million people play football annually. Results from the first randomised controlled trial, published in the BJSM in January 2009, showed that football increased maximal oxygen uptake and muscle and bone mass, and lowered fat percentage and blood pressure, in untrained men, and since then more than 70 articles about football for health have been published, including publications in two supplements of the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports in 2010 and 2014, prior to the FIFA World Cup tournaments in South Africa and Brazil. While studies of football training effects have also been performed in women and children, this article reviews the current evidence linking recreational football training with favourable effects in the prevention and treatment of disease in adult men.