[neverdem]

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[Tax-chick]

Very interesting.

[Fog Nozzle]

Maybe something to do with headbutting the ball half a million times. Nah!

[philsfan24]

i had a cousin die of this disease a few years back. it is the absolute worse disease you can possible get. the pain and suffering i saw him go through was something i wont forget. i pray that any research may help lead to a cure someday.

[thoughtomator]

Unless they find similar results among other nations' soccer players, this looks like a simple coincidence.

[miele man]

Thought you'd want to see this.

[cruiserman]

Interesting. Thankfully I'm not an Italian playing at the pro level :).

[Who dat?]

A.L.S., often called Lou Gehrig's disease, is an incurable and invariably fatal degenerative disease of the nervous system.

My understanding (which could certainly be wrong) is that ALS isn’t so much a disease as it is a category of diseases.

That’s pretty much what the doctors that treated my dad said. They were in Houston and claimed to be pretty close to the bleeding-edge when it came to diagnosing/treating such things.

They (~1996) performed various muscle biopsies and other tests and systematically ruled out A, ruled out B, ruled out C – finally at the end, having ruled out everything else, you are diagnosed with ALS. If you come in with certain complaints/symptoms and they cannot definitively diagnose you with something else, you will be diagnosed with ALS by default, IOW. That’s how I understand it.

I think that’s true because while he had symptoms associated with “typical” ALS, he also had several other “weird things” going on that I noticed that were *not* typical regarding what you’re told to expect regarding ALS. Then again, at various times they had him on medicine (experimental and otherwise) that could have contributed to the “weirdness.”

[AGreatPer]

Thanks for this post.

No one in our family ever had A.L.S. I have played and coached for 50 years. Now 65, I am getting a touch of it. Leads me to believe the headers did have something to do with it.

[EBH]

very interesting thanks for posting this.

mom, died from this catastrophic disease.

actually wondered about the causes...she grew up on farms back in the late 1930's and 1940's.

i don't think it has to do with head butting the ball etc., more like playing on specially maintained grass would sound more like it. I'd love to see similar studies done on football players and baseball players.

Looking for the common thread...

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

BTTT

[mgobluegop]

I am a big golf fan, and I remember a couple of years ago there were two semi- famous golfers, Jeff Julian and Tom Watsons' caddie Bruce Edwards, that both died from ALS within the same year. When they were diagnosed there was a scare that the chemicals used on courses might be the cause. I have not heard of anything coming of this, but it is interesting.

[Chewbacca]

It is better to go fishing than play soccer.

[Dasaji]

possible that environmental toxins like fertilizers or herbicides used on soccer fields play a role.

THIS would be the reason why...I like how they buried it as the last thing. There is a US Football team, who has something like 7 past players who got ALS. Because of the particular chemicals used on their field, drs are linking (non-scientifically, of course ;) the disease to the fertilizers.

Our salesman at our dealership just died of this in December. It is a HORRIBLE thing.

[Maigrey]

I had an uncle succumb to this, 4 months after diagnosis, and wham! gone.

For anecdotal reasons, he was a fireman.

[Captain Peter Blood]

Might be interesting to run a study of college and professional football players to see if the same problems turn up there.