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Turin (pte016/24.02.2005/10:30) - Professional footballers could be at an increased risk of developing a nerve disorder that causes paralysis and death, researchers claim. As the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk reports, a study of 7,000 Italian players showed that the condition was five times more common than expected. It is the same type of motor neurone disease that physicist Steven Hawking has, called ALS. The research by Adriano Chio and colleagues at the University of Turin http://www.unito.it has been published in the journal Brain http://brain.oupjournals.org .
The research was prompted by the discovery a few years ago of 33 cases of ALS during an investigation of illicit drug use among 24,000 professional and semi-professional footballers in Italy. With the exception of some rare cases that run in families, the cause of ALS is still unknown. It is the most common form of the motor neurone diseases. The disease is caused by the death of cells, called motor neurones, which control movement in the brain and spinal cord. There is currently no cure. Chio and his team looked back at the medical records of footballers who had played in Italy's first or second division between 1970 and 2001.
Based on the normal incidence of ALS, it would be expected that one or fewer of the players had ALS. The research team found that five had developed the condition. Furthermore, the players with ALS had developed it at a much earlier age than is typical for the disorder, at around 40 rather than 60 years. The researchers suggested that the high risk may be linked to sports injuries, performance-enhancing drugs or exposure to environmental toxins such as fertilizers or herbicides used on football fields, as well as genetic factors.
However, according to Ammar Al-Chalabi, from London's Institute of Psychiatry, it might be that people prone to ALS are drawn to sport. "There could be some quality in their neuro-muscular make-up that not only makes them good at sport, football particularly, but also makes them susceptible to ALS," he said. "We still don't know what causes this link, or whether it would be reflected in other groups of footballers and sports people," added Brian Dickie of the Motor Neurone Disease Assocation. "There is some anecdotal evidence of a link between high levels of physical exercise and an increased risk of developing motor neurone disease. However, much more research needs to be carried out before we can draw definite conclusions," he said.
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