Extensive research in Scotland shows that rugby players are 15 times more likely to have motor neuron disease. Overall 11.4% of the players were diagnosed with neurodegenerative disease
Men who have played rugby internationally are more than twice as likely to develop dementia as the general population. Not only that: professional rugby players have a chance three times higher than developing Parkinson’s disease and, even more dramatic, besidesand 15 times more likely to develop motor neuron disease, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) . A figure that brings to mind the shocking retirement of Ed Slater, a 33-year-old rugby player working for Gloucester, the English Premiership team, the top English championship. The athlete announced last July that he had been affected by ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects motor neurons, brain nerve cells and spinal cord that allow the activation of skeletal muscles. A few days earlier Ryan Jones, Welsh rugby legend had confessed to suffering from dementia.
The study on the causes of death of 412 Scottish rugby players
The study, published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry and conducted by the University of Glasgow, UK, analyzed thedeath certificates of 412 Scottish rugby players who had played internationally, all born between 1900 and 1990. The goal of the researchers, led by William Stewart was to understand what effect playing rugby had on the risk of developing a neurodegenerative disease by comparing players and non-players taking into account age and socioeconomic status. In the UK, around one in 14 people over the age of 65 and one in six over the age of 80 develop dementia, but in the rugby population the odds have soared. Over a median of 32 years, 11.4% of rugby players were diagnosed with neurodegenerative disease, compared with 5.4% in the comparison group. A neurodegenerative disease was the leading cause of death in 2.7% of rugby players, compared with 1.5% in the general population group. Watching the increased risk of motor neuron disease in rugby players was the most shocking result, comments William Stewart. Now the researchers want to understand why rugby players face such a high risk of developing the disease.
Too intense sports life
At the moment it is not known with certainty why those who practice some sports such as rugby but also football are statistically more exposed to the risk of falling ill with neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS. One of the hypotheses concerns the link with traumatic events. These athletes in fact suffer a greater number of head injuries than the general population . What worries the researchers that the rugby players in this analysis played at a time when they were amateur athletes and also did other jobs. Today’s professional players devote much more time to the game, which has become more intense, the games more numerous, so they run even greater risks: the situation in twenty years could be worse says Steward who hopes the rugby world will take the research seriously: We may have to take note that the unacceptably high number of rugby matches currently played. And maybe we should try to limit the workouts they involve as much as possible a high number of contact episodes.
The other studies
This is a major study that adds to the growing evidence that repetitive head impacts in the sports world can lead to an increased risk of neurodegenerative disease, he told The Guardian.
Virginia Newcombe, of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the University of Cambridge. The reason for an increased risk of neuro degenerative diseases is unclear and understanding the mechanism will be important in facilitating future preventive strategies.
Other previous studies found that playing football was also linked to an increased risk of dementia and that American football players are more likely than others to die from neurodegenerative diseases.
The role of head injuries and the risk of dementia has long been hypothesized, especially if they result in a long period of unconsciousness. A small study in early 2017 was among the first to show a higher risk of dementia in professional footballers. The researchers studied the brains of former footballers with memory problems. They found that most had signs of a form of dementia called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a form of degenerative brain disease (detectable are post mortem), and all had signs of Alzheimer’s disease. The most affected appear to be former American football players: according to a 2015 study, 95% of former American football players who had donated their brains to science had been affected by chronic traumatic encephalopathy. In October 2019, a study also conducted by the University of Glasgow found a link between professional footballers and dementia. The researchers compared the causes of death of 7,676 former Scottish professional footballers born between 1900 and 1976 with more than 230,000 matched individuals from the general population. The study revealed that former professional footballers had a death rate about three and a half times higher than expected due to neurodegenerative diseases. The mechanism is not entirely clear, but Boston researchers who have studied the brains of people who had spent a lifetime struggling with concussive trauma (not only sportsmen, but also workers who worked with jackhammers) thus found that the accumulation of tau protein had already occurred before the age of 67 and that these subjects, if they had not died accidentally, still had a doomed fate and sooner or later would have begun to suffer from dementia, something that no brain CT, nor an MRI, nor an examination. neuropsychological could have predicted at that time in their life. So far it is unclear whether playing football at an amateur level increases the risk of dementia as all the studies have been carried out on professionals.
Some sports may anticipate the onset of the disease
Italian studies have also helped to suggest a possible association between ALS and sport, he says Federica Agosta, neurologist and Associate Professor of Neurology at the San Raffaele Hospital and University of Milan. In particular, a study conducted in 2020 by the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research highlighted one incidence of ALS approximately double that of the general population analyzing the data relating to over 23 thousand footballers from 1959 to 2000. The most interesting result of this study was to show that disease onset was approximately 20 years earlier than in the general population. therefore it is possible to hypothesize, rather than a cause-effect link, that some sports can contribute to an anticipation of the onset of the disease and therefore of the symptoms associated with these neurodegenerative diseases-
October 8, 2022 (change October 8, 2022 | 12:21)
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