Ten thousand steps and more. Can football be dangerous for the heart? At a time when the Euro is throbbing that of millions of football fans, the question may seem out of place, which is more in a chronicle that has never ceased to convince that sport – and physical activity in general – is the best medicine.
However, it is brought back to the forefront by the telescoping of two news items. The first was experienced live by the spectators of the Denmark-Finland meeting on Saturday 12 June, who saw the Danish Christian Eriksen, 29, collapse on the pitch. Even if the footballer, who has been equipped with an implantable defibrillator, will have to say goodbye to the competition, the happy outcome of this case of sudden death of the athlete shows once again that an immediate intervention, with cardiac massage then external electric shock, greatly increases the chances of survival without sequelae. (Corollary: urgently generalize training in life-saving gestures and equip all public places, sports facilities, marathon courses, etc. with automatic external defibrillators).
However, it should be remembered that these spectacular sudden deaths of athletes are relatively rare (from 800 to 1,000 cases per year in France) and are often consecutive, in young athletes, to genetic diseases. The vast majority of the 40,000 to 60,000 sudden “all-round” deaths occurring annually in our country are linked to coronary artery damage, favored by the classic risk factors for cardiovascular disease: tobacco, hypercholesterolemia, arterial hypertension. , diabetes and… lack of physical activity.
More unnoticed, a second news, scientific this one, also questions the dangers of football for the thrilling spectators. According to a German study, published on June 17 in Scientific Reports, the number of patients admitted in Germany to hospital for myocardial infarction during the thirty-one days of the 2014 World Cup (18,479) was significantly higher than those over the same period in 2013 (+2, 1%) and 2015 (+ 3.7%). Karsten Keller, first author of the article, and his colleagues point out that the hospital mortality from these cardiac accidents (8.3%) was not higher in the year of the World Cup except … on the day of the final – where Germany had won against Argentina. As of this date, this death rate has climbed to 12%. The researchers are careful to point out that football is Germany’s most popular sport, and that half of the country had watched the sporting event on television.
You have 34.25% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
