Youth Football May Increase Stroke Risk - National Stroke Association

Youth Football May Increase Stroke Risk
Friday, December 9, 2011

UPI.com

Young football players may be at elevated risk for stroke, U.S. researchers suggest.

Dr. Jared R. Brosch and Dr. Meredith R. Golomb of Indiana University School of Medicine looked at case studies of teen football players who suffered a stroke and found some potential causes for strokes in young football athletes, including increased hyperventilation, repeated neurological injury, use of anabolic steroids, use of highly caffeinated energy drinks and increased obesity among young players.

The study authors point out the increase in obesity presents a twofold risk, as it not only increases the force of impacts among the players, but also the likelihood for other stroke risk factors such as hypertension.

"Two of our subjects had mild hypertension, but were too young to have had the many years of exposure that would lead to chronic vascular injury," Brosch and Golomb said in a statement.