It’s protected to assume that athletes who dedicate their lives to staying fit and healthy generally live longer.
Elite athletes are expected to live longer Because physically fit persons are less more likely to die from cardiovascular diseases (heart attacks and strokes) and cancer.
Unfortunately, our latest research suggests this doesn’t seem like true for elite Australian rules football and rugby players.
What we discovered
Our research examined survival and longevity in three groups of elite Australian male athletes: Australian Football League (AFL) players, national rugby union players (Wallabies), and Summer Olympians participating in cardio sports with out a high risk of head injury, similar to rowing, swimming, and triathlon.
Before we dive into the main points, a number of definitions: survival it’s a state of continuous to live while longevity is the power to live an extended life that exceeds the typical lifespan of individuals in the overall population.
In our study, Olympic athletes lived longer than the overall population by 3.4 years. In contrast, neither AFL players nor Wallabies lived significantly longer than the overall population.
AFL players lived on average almost 4 months longer, while Wallabies lived around eight months less than the overall population.
We also compared athletes who debuted before and after January 1, 1970, to see whether survival improved over time.
As expected, the younger generation survived higher than the older generation. However, similar improvements in survival also occurred in the overall population.
In other words, there was no significant improvement within the survival rate of athletes in comparison with the overall population.
These findings are surprising considering the handfuls previous studies involving half one million elite athletes indicate that elite athletes typically outlive the overall population by 4 to seven years.
Comparisons with previous studies
Our findings for wallabies are consistent with previous research on elite rugby players Scotland AND New Zealand.
However, our findings regarding AFL players appear to contradict: previous studywhich shows that AFL players have a lower death rate than the overall population.
Differences in research methods are likely behind the several results. The most significant of those is the player inclusion criteria.
For the study, we included all players who debuted since 1921, whereas the previous study included players who debuted at any time but omitted players who died before 1970.
In other words, the previous study preferentially excluded older generation players who died young. It also preferentially included older generation players who lived into old age.
This would skew the outcomes of the previous study towards higher survival and longevity.
Why aren’t elite AFL and rugby players living longer?
Survival advantages (how long athletes outlive the overall population) vary by sport.
Athletes participating in non-cardio sports (similar to weightlifting and discus throwing) they don’t benefit from the same survival advantages as athletes practicing cardio sports (similar to running and swimming).
However, survival advantages also vary between different cardio sports, suggesting that there are additional aspects that determine longevity amongst elite athletes.
The determinants include the characteristics of the game practiced (whether there may be a risk of head injury) and characteristics related to the style of person practicing a given sport (e.g. socioeconomic status).
Unfortunately, in our study we didn’t have access to information on the causes of death or potential determinants of longevity.
However, we will find some clues from previous research on professionals football AND rugby players from abroad.
These studies have shown that athletes are prone to death from heart problems, cancer and respiratory diseases (similar to: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), which is consistent with the concept that increased fitness provides survival advantages.
However, studies have also shown that athletes were roughly 140-250% more more likely to die from neurodegenerative diseases (similar to dementia, Parkinson’s disease and motor neurone disease).
The conclusion appears to be that the survival advantage of increased fitness is offset by the increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases.
We don’t know if this explanation applies to AFL players and wallabies, but further research could discover by combining athletes’ data with government death registration data.
This style of research might be expensive and time-consuming and unfortunately this time we were unable to secure the required funding.
Opportunity cost?
Whatever the explanations, the indisputable fact that AFL players and wallabies don’t survive significantly longer than the overall population is a cause for concern.
It suggests that it exists opportunity cost for these athletes.
In other words, by participating within the elite Australian Football and Rugby Association, they gave up the advantages of participating in sports during which athletes outlive the overall population by 4 to seven years.
From a population health perspective, when promoting sports participation, we should always consider this chance cost.