Originally Posted by rubicon (Post 436680)

Was there a reason(s) given for the disparity?????

Originally Posted by Villages PL (Post 436824)

I didn't spend much time at that site but I think there could be several reasons. Here's what I would guess:

1. Diet: This is probably a big factor. Most athletes are not known for eating salads, right? :) If anything, they are big consumers of animal protein and starch.

2. Training: How about the stress of competition? To qualify, you have to be highly competitive and elite athletes train hard. This can raise cortisol levels.

3. Performance enhancing drugs: I'm not sure about this but it may be a factor.

4. Sports injuries and deaths: Those who die young in training or competition will serve to bring the average life expectancy down. I'm not sure how big a factor this is but we have heard of runners dropping dead while running and basketball players dropping dead during a game.

5. Risk taking: Elite athletes are relatively young and may tend to be risk takers in general. Think drugs, booze and partying. This may or may not be a factor.

Getting back to diet, most elite athletes are big and tall and expend a lot of energy. So they eat a lot and burn a lot of calories. The more calories one burns the more free radicals that are created in the burning process. And these free radicals cause damage to cells. In other words, they burn themselves out. Well, it's just a theory.

Having said that, in (double blind) small-animal studies that have been conducted since the 1930s, animals that are fed low calorie diets live considerably longer than those who are allowed to eat as much as they want.

Originally Posted by eweissenbach (Post 436869)

Being a former athlete (not elite) and coach, I have done a lot of reading on this subject. Elite athletes make a lot of sacrifices to get to the top, including, in many cases, bad nutrition in an effort to gain weight and/or strength. Many of them also have abused steroids and drugs in an effort to gain an edge. They also suffer from depression at a higher rate than the average population, probably due largely to the comedown from being an icon to being just another citizen.

Now football is a story unto itself. All of the other factors affect former football players PLUS the unbeleiveable damage done to their bodies as the result of the collisions they are involved in regularly. Few football players come through their career without multiple concussions, not to mention broken bones, torn ligaments, compressed disks etc. The toll on the human body through football is something that we were simply not built to endure. The suicide rate among former football and hockey players (another group who take a brutal beating) is several times higher than the public as a whole. There was an interesting article on the 86 Cincinnati Bengals in Sports Illustrated a couple weeks ago, which outlined the medical issues they had dealt with over the last 25 years. While most had suffered multiple problems, surgeries, etc. almost all felt it was worth it and they would do it over again knowing what they know.

Originally Posted by Trish Crocker (Post 437011)

Wow, if being an athlete means you have a shorter life...I should live to be 150 :)

Originally Posted by Trish Crocker (Post 437011)

Wow, if being an athlete means you have a shorter life...I should live to be 150 :)

Originally Posted by Villages PL (Post 436824)

I didn't spend much time at that site but I think there could be several reasons. Here's what I would guess:

1. Diet: This is probably a big factor. Most athletes are not known for eating salads, right? :) If anything, they are big consumers of animal protein and starch.

2. Training: How about the stress of competition? To qualify, you have to be highly competitive and elite athletes train hard. This can raise cortisol levels.

3. Performance enhancing drugs: I'm not sure about this but it may be a factor.

4. Sports injuries and deaths: Those who die young in training or competition will serve to bring the average life expectancy down. I'm not sure how big a factor this is but we have heard of runners dropping dead while running and basketball players dropping dead during a game.

5. Risk taking: Elite athletes are relatively young and may tend to be risk takers in general. Think drugs, booze and partying. This may or may not be a factor.

Getting back to diet, most elite athletes are big and tall and expend a lot of energy. So they eat a lot and burn a lot of calories. The more calories one burns the more free radicals that are created in the burning process. And these free radicals cause damage to cells. In other words, they burn themselves out. Well, it's just a theory.

Having said that, in small-animal studies that have been conducted since the 1930s, animals that are fed low calorie diets live considerably longer than those who are allowed to eat as much as they want.

Originally Posted by Villages PL (Post 436678)

I saw a list of athletes in the Daily Sun who died in 2011 and I figured out their average age of death. It came to 68. No surprise there because I had read years ago that they live shorter lives, on average, than the general population. There were ten athletes listed for 2011.

I figured that wasn't very scientific so I went to google to see what I could find. Well, I found a site that stated the average elite athlete will only live to age 67. How about that! I was only off by one year. And 67 compares with the average for the U.S. population of 76.

Another statistic (this one from the NFL): The average life expectancy for NFL players is 58.

Could it be we admire the wrong people?