ArticleGlobal spine journal2019
Contact Sports as a Risk Factor for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Systematic Review.
Article in Global spine journal, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 60 citations in OpenAlex.
- Environmental risk factors, protective factors, and biomarkers for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: an umbrella review.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Noninvasive mapping of shear strain predicts the anatomical distribution of mild traumatic brain injury.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2026Article
- Greek Registry for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS-GR): An Observational Cohort of Individuals With ALS Across 11 Specialized Centers in Greece.European journal of neurology · 2025Observational
- Review
- Health characteristics and health behaviours in male former contact sports participants: comparison with general population controls in a Finnish cohort study.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2025Article
- Head Injury and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Population-Based Study from the National ALS Registry.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Clinical and Sociodemographic Factors Related to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in Spain: A Pilot Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Soccer (football) and brain health.Journal of neurology · 2024Review
- Strain concentration drives the anatomical distribution of injury in acute and chronic traumatic brain injury.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Role of the Exposome in Neurodegenerative Disease: Recent Insights and Future Directions.Annals of neurology · 2024Review
- Neuropathological Outcomes of Traumatic Brain Injury and Alcohol Use in Males and Females: Studies Using Pre-Clinical Rodent and Clinical Human Specimens.Journal of neurotrauma · 2023Article
- The amyotrophic lateral sclerosis exposome: recent advances and future directions.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2023Review
- Alzheimer's pathology is associated with altered cognition, brain volume, and plasma biomarker patterns in traumatic encephalopathy syndrome.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2023Article
- Dementia in former amateur and professional contact sports participants: population-based cohort study, systematic review, and meta-analysis.EClinicalMedicine · 2023Article
- Security breach: peripheral nerves provide unrestricted access for toxin delivery into the central nervous system.Neural regeneration research · 2023Review
- Brain Trauma Imaging.Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine · 2023Article
- Sports and trauma as risk factors for Motor Neurone Disease: New Zealand case-control study.Acta neurologica Scandinavica · 2022Article
- Association of Playing College American Football With Long-term Health Outcomes and Mortality.JAMA network open · 2022Article
- A New Hypothesis for Alzheimer's Disease: The Lipid Invasion Model.Journal of Alzheimer's disease reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
STUDY
designSystematic review.
introductionAmyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, ultimately resulting in paralysis and death. The condition is considered to be caused by a complex interaction between environmental and genetic factors. Although vast genetic research has deciphered many of the molecular factors in ALS pathogenesis, the environmental factors have remained largely unknown. Recent evidence suggests that participation in certain types of sporting activities are associated with increased risk for ALS.
objectiveTo test the hypothesis that competitive sports at the highest level that involve repetitive concussive head and cervical spinal trauma result in an increased risk of ALS compared with the general population or nonsport controls.
methodsElectronic databases from inception to November 22, 2017 and reference lists of key articles were searched to identify studies meeting inclusion criteria.
resultsSixteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Sports assessed (professional or nonprofessional) included soccer (n = 5), American football (n = 2), basketball (n = 1), cycling (n = 1), marathon or triathlon (n = 1), skating (n = 1), and general sports not specified (n = 11). Soccer and American football were considered sports involving repetitive concussive head and cervical spinal trauma. Professional sports prone to repetitive concussive head and cervical spinal trauma were associated with substantially greater effects (pooled rate ratio [RR] 8.52, 95% CI 5.18-14.0) compared with (
conclusionsOur review suggests that increased susceptibility to ALS is significantly and independently associated with 2 factors: professional sports and sports prone to repetitive concussive head and cervical spinal trauma. Their combination resulted in an additive effect, further increasing this association to ALS.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.