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

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is gaining importance as a major risk factor for Parkinson's Disease (PD) as observed in nonhuman TBI models and autopsy studies. Studies report repetitive head impacts from American football may also be associated with increased risk of neurodegenerative pathologies that cause parkinsonism, yet not much is known about the association between football play and PD.

A cross-sectional study leveraged data from the Fox Insight online study, and revealed that participants with history of playing organized football had higher odds of having a reported parkinsonism or PD diagnosis compared with participants in other organized sports. Longer duration of play and higher level of football play were associated with higher odds of a reported diagnosis. The study is published in JAMA Network.

To evaluate the association between football participation and self-reported parkinsonism or PD diagnosis researchers conducted a cross sectional study. Participants completed online questionnaires and self-reported whether they currently had a diagnosis of Parkinson disease or parkinsonism by a physician or other health care professional. A total of 1875 men who endorsed playing any organized sport were included. Former athletes were divided into those who participated in football (n = 729 [38.9%]) and those who participated in other sports (reference group).

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.