Do Former NFL Players Age Prematurely?

hubie writes:

Interesting study to think about before the big game this weekend:

Certain age-related diseases may arise earlier in professional football players, new study finds:

Former professional football players - particularly linemen - are more likely than nonplayers with similar demographic characteristics to develop diseases typically associated with advanced age when significantly younger, according to new research published Dec. 8 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

These former elite athletes also tend to experience age-related conditions - hypertension and diabetes, among others - earlier, compared with the general population. Looking across all conditions, these athletes' health spans were reduced by nearly a decade.

Notably, the effects persisted even after the researchers accounted for body mass index and race, two powerful risk factors for the diseases studied.

[...] Importantly, the health span for each former NFL player age group most closely resembled American men a decade older. For example, 66 percent of the former players in the 30 to 39 age group reported an intact health span, compared with 62 percent of men in the general population ages 40 to 49.

Searching for game-related aspects that might be important for this premature emergence of aging diseases, the researchers separated data from the former football players group into linemen and non-linemen.

This analysis showed that linemen, who experience more contact during games than non-linemen, had notably shorter health spans across all decades of life. This subgroup tended to develop age-related diseases sooner than their non-linemen peers.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.