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Winning Super Bowl Players Healthy Decades Later

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The select group of professional football players that comprised the 1969 Super Bowl winning team appears to be as healthy as other men in their age group.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The select group of professional football players that comprised the 1969 Super Bowl winning team appears to be as healthy as other men in their age group.

Although there is a perception that retired professional football players generally have poor health, little research has assessed the long-term health status of these athletes.

To investigate, Dr. Malachy P. McHugh, of Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and colleagues reviewed the football-related injury and general physical and mental health history of 36 members of the 1969 New York Jets football team 35 years after their Super Bowl victory.

"The surprising result was that the players' quality of life was not worse than age-matched population norms, despite a high prevalence of arthritis and other musculoskeletal problems such as back pain," McHugh told Reuters Health.

"Considering the high musculoskeletal injury rate in American football we expected that these players would have a high prevalence of arthritis, and this was indeed the case," McHugh said.

Twenty-four of the 36 former players had arthritis in one or more joints, 7 had total knee replacements, and 13 had low back pain, the researchers report in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

Those with arthritis and back pain had physical health scores 21 percent lower than other team mates, but their health scores were only somewhat lower than the U.S. population age-matched norms.

By contrast, the former players without arthritis or back pain had physical health scores significantly higher than age-matched norms.

The players had mental health scores comparable to those of men their age in the general population, and those with arthritis and back pain did not have lower scores than their fellow athletes without pain. Overall, 94 percent of the players reported having a very or somewhat fulfilling career.

"These players had access to and sought excellent medical care for their conditions and have maintained a healthy lifestyle," McHugh comments. However, he adds that these results may not be the same as those of all retired players

SOURCE: The American Journal of Sports Medicine, October 2007.

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