Objective To examine the relationships between age, healthspan and chronic illness among former professional American-style football (ASF) players.
Methods We compared age-specific race-standardised and body mass index-standardised prevalence ratios of arthritis, dementia/Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension and diabetes among early adult and middle-aged (range 25–59 years) male former professional ASF players (n=2864) with a comparator cohort from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and National Health Interview Survey, two representative samples of the US general population. Age was stratified into 25–29, 30–39, 40–49 and 50–59 years.
Results Arthritis and dementia/Alzheimer’s disease were more prevalent among ASF players across all study age ranges (all p<0.001). In contrast, hypertension and diabetes were more prevalent among ASF players in the youngest age stratum only (p<0.001 and p<0.01, respectively). ASF players were less likely to demonstrate intact healthspan (ie, absence of chronic…