Longer the duration of football play, higher is occurence of Parkinson's Disease

Logistic regression tested associations between PD status and history of football play, duration of football play, highest level played, and age at first exposure, controlling for age, education, history of diabetes or heart disease, body mass index, history of traumatic brain injury with loss of consciousness, and family history of PD.

The key findings of the study are

• In this sample of 1875 men (mean [SD] age, 67.69 [9.84] years) enriched for parkinsonism or PD (n = 1602 [85.4%]), 729 (38.9%) played football (mean [SD] duration, 4.35 [2.91] years).

• History of playing football was associated with higher odds of having a parkinsonism or PD diagnosis (odds ratio [OR], 1.61; 95% CI, 1.19-2.17).

• Among the entire sample, longer duration of play was associated with higher odds of having a parkinsonism or PD diagnosis (OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.06-1.19).

• Among football players, longer duration of football play (OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 1.02-1.23) and higher level of play (OR, 2.93; 95% CI, 1.28-6.73) were associated with higher odds of having parkinsonism or PD.

Researchers concluded that “In this cross-sectional study of participants enriched for PD, participation in football was associated with higher odds of having a reported parkinsonism or PD diagnosis.”

Reference: Bruce HJ, Tripodis Y, McClean M, et al. American Football Play and Parkinson Disease Among Men. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(8):e2328644. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.28644.