A Comparison of Mortality between Professional American Football and Baseball Players

by | Nov 26, 2019 | 2019, Fitness and Exercise

Written by Joyce Smith, BS. This study found that National Football League (NFL) players had a higher rate of mortality than Major League Baseball (MLB) players; this may be associated with aspects of playing in professional American-style football.

brain health - concussionStudies comparing United States (US) NFL players with the general US populations have implicated lower overall mortality among US NFL players 1,2.  Main stream media has used these studies to discredit claims that American-style football may be harmful 3,4. Other studies have reported that neurodegenerative disease mortality is high among NFL players 2 with evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in a number of players 5. American-style football players have higher rates of head injuries 6 and more cardiovascular risk factors, including excess weight, hypertension, and sleep apnea, than baseball players 7.  Thus, a research group led by Marc Weisskopf from Harvard’s public health school, specifically chose to compare all-cause and cause-specific mortality among NFL players with that among MLB players to provide a better perspective on risks that may be inherent to both of these elite sports. They hypothesized that NFL players would have higher rates of all-cause mortality than MLB players.

The retrospective cohort study 8, consisted of 3,439 NFL players who played at least one season between 1959 and 1988 and had at least 5 pension-credited seasons overall and 2,708 MLB players with at least 5 playing seasons. The analysis of death rates and causes of death among both athlete groups spanned a period of more than 30 years. After adjusting for date of birth and ethnicity, the Weisskpof team found a 26% higher mortality among football players than among baseball players. The risk of dying from neuro-degenerative diseases was three times greater among NFL football players, who also had a 2.5 times higher risk of dying from heart disease.  Extrapolated into absolute numbers, NFL players would see one additional death from neurodegenerative disease per 1000 NFL players by age 55, increasing to 11 additional neurodegenerative deaths by age 75 when compared to MLB players. In addition, heart disease would account for 16 additional deaths per 1,000 NFL players by age 55, and 77 additional deaths by age 75 when comparing NFL to MLB players. The authors suggest that the higher heart disease deaths in NFL players may be linked to their higher body mass index.

The research was not designed to find reasons for the elevated risk experienced by players in the NFL nor the mechanisms that fueled disease development. They recommend that interpretation of study results be limited to the NFL players in the playing years cited in this study because changes in sports characteristics have occurred over time, namely the use of helmets, the training regimen and also the prevalence of smoking among players. Also informational data on family history, genetics, and lifestyle was lacking, all of which affect risks for specific diseases and death. Therefore, the authors state the necessity for future studies to elaborate on the differences in mortality between the two sports. A question remains as to whether young amateur athletes face similar risks. Hopefully a better understanding of the long-term health consequences of American-style football will create public awareness of important risk factors and disease mechanisms associated with the sport.

Source: Nguyen, Vy T., Ross D. Zafonte, Jarvis T. Chen, Kalé Z. Kponee-Shovein, Sabrina Paganoni, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Frank E. Speizer et al. “Mortality among professional American-style football players and professional American baseball players.” JAMA network open 2, no. 5 (2019): e194223-e194223.

©This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License. JAMA Network Open. 2019; 2(5):e194223. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.4223 (Reprinted)

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Posted November 26, 2019.

Joyce Smith, BS, is a degreed laboratory technologist. She received her bachelor of arts with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Biology from  the University of Saskatchewan and her internship through the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine and the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She currently resides in Bloomingdale, IL.

References:

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