Accidents & Violence, Aging, Author Interviews, BMJ, Brain Injury, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Exercise - Fitness / 15.12.2022
NFL Players Found to Lose About 10 Years of HealthSpan
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
[caption id="attachment_59841" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Dr. Grashow[/caption]
Rachel Grashow PhD
Research Scientist
Department of Environmental Health
Football Players Health Study at Harvard University
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Anecdotally, we heard from former NFL players that they felt older than their chronological age. At the same time, doctors and medical care providers treating former players also observed that players appeared clinically older in some health domains. These observations motivated us to ask: despite superior fitness and success as young men, are football players experiencing early aging and living with illness and disability for more years than their non-football peers?
Dr. Grashow[/caption]
Rachel Grashow PhD
Research Scientist
Department of Environmental Health
Football Players Health Study at Harvard University
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Anecdotally, we heard from former NFL players that they felt older than their chronological age. At the same time, doctors and medical care providers treating former players also observed that players appeared clinically older in some health domains. These observations motivated us to ask: despite superior fitness and success as young men, are football players experiencing early aging and living with illness and disability for more years than their non-football peers?
Dr Paul Gentil
Faculty of Physical Education and Dance
Federal University of Goias
Goiania, Brazil
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Although being overweight and/or obese are associated with numerous health risks, the prevalence of both are continuing to increase worldwide. The treatment would include anything that results in an increase in energy expenditure (exercise) or a decrease in energy intake (diet). However, our metabolism seems to adapt to variations in physical activity to maintain total energy expenditure. Although lower-than-expected weight loss is often attributed to incomplete adherence to prescribed interventions, there are other factors that might influence the results, such as, metabolic downregulation.
So, instead of making people spend more calories, maybe we have to think on how to promote metabolic changes in order to overcome these physiological adaptations above-mentioned. In this regard, high intensity training might be particularly interesting as a strategy to promote fat loss. Irrespective the amount of calories spent during training, higher intensity exercise seems to promote many physiological changes that might favor long-term weight loss. For example, previous studies have shown that interval training is able to promote upregulation of important enzymes associated with glycolysis and beta oxidation pathways, which occurs in a greater extent than with moderate intensity continuous exercise.
Our findings suggest that interval training might be an important tool to promote weigh loss. However, I t might be performed adequately and under direct supervision in order to get better results.