William Atkins
Saturday, 27 June 2009 19:04
Science -
Health
Page 1 of 3
According to a U.S. study published in the medical journal JAMA, National Football League players are overall in good cardiovascular health, but they do have higher blood pressure when compared to other men of smaller size.
The May 27, 2009 article (JAMA. 2009;301(20):2111-2119) in the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is entitled “
Prevalence of Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among National Football League Players.”
The researchers wanted to find out if the extra large size of professional football players when compared to the average man in the United States has any medical significance regarding their overall health.
Specifically, the researchers wanted to assess the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors of active
National Football League (NFL) players and compare them to people taking part in a study called Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (
CARDIA).
The study was lead by Dr.
Andrew M. Tucker, a sports medicine physician at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Head Team Physician for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL).
The Tucker-led group studied 504 active NFL players from 12 NFL teams between April and July 2007 (the off-season in American football).
They compared this data with data collected of 1,959 men in the same age bracket of the CARDIA study. These men, age 23 to 35 years, were studied from 1985 to 1986.
Overall, the NFL players were slightly younger and considerably heavier and taller than the control group, the CARDIA men.
Page two discusses the results of the NFL player study.
