Posted on 03/01/2005 3:54:30 PM PST by neverdem
12 times higher = 18 total, easily small enough of a number for it to be a coincidence.
How the heck do you play soccer without using your head or chest? That's like trying to play baseball without a glove!
Football players receive plenty of head trauma -- do they get ALS?
We've all seen what happened to Muhammed Ali -- Parkinson's disease. Do boxers have higher incidences of ALS?
Soccer players recieve their headers on the hairline, which is a very specific impact point. Boxers take hits in may places, but typically NOT where a soccer ball is headed.
Football players receive plenty of head trauma -- do they get ALS?
We've all seen what happened to Muhammed Ali -- Parkinson's disease. Do boxers have higher incidences of ALS?
Soccer players recieve their headers on the hairline, which is a very specific impact point. Boxers take hits in may places, but typically NOT where a soccer ball is headed.
"I played soccer all my life, including as an adult for over 10 years at a high competitive level, approximately 30 matches a year, practices, etc."
"I always felt, the day after a match, like I had been beaten with a stick over every square inch of my body.'
Soccer, marathons and competitive bicycle riding may push the envelope a little too much for those who are really into it and are conditioned to perform at peak level several times a week.
Our youngest son is addicted to bicycle riding. He does over 10,000 miles per year while working 40 to 60 hours per week. He has basically zero body fat and his resting and active pulse rates are amazing low.
However, we have seen him several times reach what he calls his peak condition and get whacked a little later somehow by his immune system. It takes him a couple of months to recover. Then about a year later there is another attack by his body on him.
The last one scared him with a GI bleed, some anemia and feeling miserable for about two months.
There is a fine balance with some of these athletes and some severe problems where their bodies seem to attack them.
Leading theories concern neurotoxicity relating to abnormalities of calcium and amino acids (especially glutamate) essential to neurotransmission. Excessive entry of these compounds into the neurons damages cell metabolism, resulting in pathologic changes. Neuronal damage could similarly result from oxidative processes that produce hydroxyl radicals. Clinical trials of medications that attempt to reverse these processes are under way. Other hypothetic causes of ALS include neurotoxicity from various metals, chemicals or foods,12 and, conversely, deficiency of neurotrophic agents (poorly understood proteins that enhance neuronal maintenance and growth).4,
An intriguing theory that brings together several factors holds that ALS develops when vulnerable persons are exposed to a neurotoxin at times of strenuous physical activity.14 For example, bursts of maximal muscle strength in athletes could create conditions that would deliver such a toxin to the anterior horn cells.
BTTT
"I didn't believe I would find any significant result. Now I know I was wrong."
If he's using the word "significant" the way it's used in medical journals when discussing statistical results, then he means that he would have expected to find those results by chance less than once out of twenty random sample populations.
It is better to go fishing than play soccer.
There was a group of doctors out on Long Island several years back who were trying to get funding for a study on potential links btwn. lyme disease and ALS. Why? Bcse of 18 ALS patients they treated, exactly half also tested positive for lyme by PCR and titer. I don't know if they ever got funding, but I know that there have been many anecdotal cases of ALS patients testing positive for lyme. Whether that means untreated lyme can eventually lead to ALS, or if it means some tertiary lyme patients have been misdiagnosed with ALS, I couldn't say. It's intriguing in the context of this article, though, since soccer players spend lots of time out in parks, fields, etc.
An intriguing theory that brings together several factors holds that ALS develops when vulnerable persons are exposed to a neurotoxin at times of strenuous physical activity.14 For example, bursts of maximal muscle strength in athletes could create conditions that would deliver such a toxin to the anterior horn cells.
Understood. But around 5% of the time, it is actually just coincidence.
I remember the concern about playing fields, too.
My husband has been diagnosed with ALS and was a juvenile soccer/rugby player. Personally, we believe that people may be off the mark to believe that "doping" or even excessive muscle use are responsible for a connection of soccer with ALS. We believe the culprit is much more likely to be the chemical--pesticides, herbicides, greening agents, etc.--with which the playing fields are treated. My husband has tested positive for a high lindane level, which is a potent neurotoxic pesticide. I seriously doubt whether Lou Gehrig's was a "doper"; but he certainly was exposed to chemicals on the field. (Lindane, I believe, was patented in 1938.)
Drugs are used by another group that performs strenuous physical activity -- Rock musicians. I wonder what the rate of ALS is among them.
Seems this 'rare' disease is getting all sorts of attention lately.
I heard from that fella in my area who has lived with ALS for 21 years that was in the article we discussed yesterday. What an awesome guy! I wish my MIL had had the opportunity to meet him.
ping...sorry if you've already seen this one. :)
THIS would be the reason why...I like how they buried it as the last thing. There is a US Football team, who has something like 7 past players who got ALS. Because of the particular chemicals used on their field, drs are linking (non-scientifically, of course ;) the disease to the fertilizers.
Our salesman at our dealership just died of this in December. It is a HORRIBLE thing.
Ummm....24,000 players studied, 12 times higher?
Any statisticians out there?
Supposedly, ALS affects 1 in 100,000.
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