DEMENTIA IN FOOTBALL study finds outfield players more likely to develop illness
Outfield players are significantly more likely to develop dementia than goalkeepers, a study conducted on Swedish top flight footballers has found.
The research also discovered that outfield footballers were 50 per cent more likely to develop dementia than the rest of the population.
Research undertaken by the Karolinska Institute, published in the Lancet Public Health journal, found that 8.3 per cent of outfield footballers were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, compared to 5.1 per cent of the control group.
Among goalkeepers, 6·9 per cent of the sample were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.
The risk of neurodegenerative disease among outfield players and goalkeepers was compared “because goalkeepers rarely head the ball, but share exposures with outfield players that are specific to football players”.
“Importantly, our findings suggest that goalkeepers don’t have the same
increased risk of neurodegenerative disease as outfield players,” said Peter Ueda, assistant professor at Karolinska Institutet and co-author of the study.
“Goalkeepers rarely head the ball, unlike outfield players, but are exposed to similar environments and lifestyles during their football careers and perhaps also after retirement.”
The study compared the health records of over 6,000 amateur and professional male footballers who had played at least one game in Allsvenskan from August 1, 1924– December 31, 2019 to a matched control sample from the general population.
The research follows a 2019 University of Glasgow study that found former professional footballers were 3.5 times more likely to develop dementia and other serious neurological diseases.