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The men competing in the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) are some of the most elite athletes in the world. But their death rates differ markedly, a new study of thousands of former pro athletes has found. Former pro football players had a higher overall death rate than baseball veterans and were felled by cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative illnesses at strikingly higher rates than their MLB peers. On average, the football players died 7 years earlier than MLB players, the research found.
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The 517 former NFL players who died during that 35-year period did so at an average age of 59.6 years; the baseball players at 66.7 years. By far the largest cause of death for the football players was heart disease: It was listed as a cause of death for 498 of the 517 NFL players surveyed. By contrast, brain disease contributed to just 39 of those deaths. Among the former MLB players, there were 431 deaths, with heart disease listed as a cause in 225 of them and neurodegenerative disease in 16.
Data analysis.
Hmm, could it be sublimated guilt over their mistreatment of nerds in high school?
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday May 28 2019, @06:27PM
I'm not convinced that "dying at a faster rate" is the way to describe early deaths in long-term studies. If the study goes long enough, every participant will die, as is the human condition. It was meaningless enough to inspire me to read the article [sciencemag.org] gasp! Say it isn't true!
In doing so, I found that the higher death rates are mentioned specifically for heart disease and brain disease, which makes sense; not everybody dies from those causes. However, the data analysis [jamanetwork.com] linked story also claims that the former football player mortality rate was higher for all causes. But this is possible because they only follow the study participants until age 75, so all the older players don't contribute a death to the study. The conclusions make sense, but the blanket statement (that doesn't qualify age) is inappropriate.
Every step of the way, the story gets diluted a little bit more, until it teeters on the edge of meaninglessness. The ultimate outcome is often a sound-bite, such as 'coffee prevents death,' or 'coffee causes cancer.' (Maybe it was red wine...) Might I suggest 'Football is deadly, but not for the reason you think." This version hints at the overall magnitude of causes of death without focusing on the comparative risk. (But that has drawbacks, too...)
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