SynthesisSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)2021
Health Consequences of an Elite Sporting Career: Long-Term Detriment or Long-Term Gain? A Meta-Analysis of 165,000 Former Athletes.
Synthesis in Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 68 citations in OpenAlex.
- Associations Between Exercise Training, Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Mortality: An Umbrella Review of Meta-Analyses.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2025Pooled it
- How the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures reduce physical activity among children and adolescents in the WHO European Region: a systematic review and meta-analysis.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2023Pooled it
- Dietary flavanols preserve upper- and lower-limb endothelial function during sitting in high- and low-fit young healthy males.The Journal of physiology · 2026Trial
- The Impact of Cocoa Flavanols in Modulating Resting Cerebral Blood Flow During Prolonged Sitting in Healthy Young and Older Adults.Nutrients · 2025Trial
- Ultra-processed Foods and Athletes: Current Insights on Classification, Use, Awareness, and Impact-A Narrative Review.Sports medicine - open · 2026Review
- Assessing the causal impact of leisure-time physical activity and screen time on lifespan: a Mendelian randomization study.European review of aging and physical activity : official journal of the European Group for Research into Elderly and Physical Activity · 2026Article
- Resilience against exercise-related coronary atherosclerosis: A case study in a master athlete participating in 500 marathons.Sports medicine and health science · 2026Article
- Muscle, Neuromuscular, and Cardiac Damage in Trail Running: A Systematic Review.Muscles (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Death Rates of Elite and Professional American Athletes During Early Adulthood are Lower than the General Population.American journal of lifestyle medicine · 2026Article
- The paradox of sport: adolescent athletes are highly sedentary across competition, practice, and rest days.BMC sports science, medicine & rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Epigenome-wide exploratory study of blood DNA methylation and markers of physical performance indicates subtle differences across levels of cardiovascular fitness.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Article
- Exercise-induced hypertrophic preconditioning alleviates myocardial ischemic injury through trained immunity of macrophages.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Article
- Mortality of female and male Croatian Olympic athletes: a 1948-2016 cohort study.Croatian medical journal · 2025Article
- The Breast Impact Monitoring System: A Portable and Wearable Platform to Support Injury Prevention in Female Athletes.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The Aging Curve: How Age Affects Physical Performance in Elite Football.Journal of functional morphology and kinesiology · 2025Article
- The Skin Microbiome Profile of Contact Sports Athletes-Focus on Sexual Dimorphism and Athlete-Non-Athlete Differences.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Health among Retired Great Britain's Olympic Athletes: A cross-sectional Study of Disease and Multimorbidity.Sports medicine - open · 2025Article
- Article
- Activity and social correlates of physical fitness in Lithuanian schoolchildren.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Biomarkers of aging: from molecules and surrogates to physiology and function.Physiological reviews · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionExercise is widely accepted to improve health, reducing the risk of premature mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer. However, several epidemiological studies suggest that the exercise-longevity relationship may be 'J' shaped; with elite athlete's likely training above these intensity and volume thresholds. Therefore, the aim of this meta-analysis was to examine this relationship in former elite athletes.
methods38,047 English language articles were retrieved from Web of Science, PubMed and SportDiscus databases published after 1970, of which 44 and 24 were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis, respectively. Athletes were split into three groups depending on primary sport: Endurance (END), Mixed/Team, or power (POW). Standard mortality ratio's (SMR) and standard proportionate mortality ratio (SPMR) were obtained, or calculated, and combined for the meta-analysis.
resultsAthletes lived significantly longer than the general population (male SMR 0.69 [95% CI 0.61-0.78]; female SMR 0.51 [95% CI 0.40-0.65]; both p < 0.01). There was no survival benefit for male POW athletes compared to the general population (SMR 1.04 [95% CI 0.91-1.12]). Although male athlete's CVD (SMR 0.73 [95% CI 0.62-0.85]) and cancer mortality (SMR 0.75 [95% CI 0.63-0.89]), were significantly reduced compared to the general population, there was no risk-reduction for POW athletes CVD mortality (SMR 1.10 [0.86-1.40]) or END athletes cancer mortality (SMR 0.73 [0.50-1.07]). There was insufficient data to calculate female sport-specific SMR's. DISCUSSION: Overall, athletes live longer and have a reduced incidence of both CVD and cancer mortality compared to the general population, refuting the 'J' shape hypothesis. However, different health risks may be apparent according to sports classification, and between sexes, warranting further investigation. Trial registration PROSPERO (registration number: CRD42019130688).
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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.