Motor neurone worry hangs over Italian game
Reuters - Friday 10 October 2008, 12:02
ROME - Stefano Borgonovo was guest of
honour at Wednesday's friendly between former clubs Fiorentina
and AC Milan, though he was unable to play.
Borgonovo moved Italians last month when he revealed that he
was suffering from the most common form of motor neurone disease
-- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).
The 44-year-old former striker's announcement, given from a
wheelchair through a computer-generated voice after he lost the
power of speech, sent a shiver of dread through generations of
past and present Italian footballers.
Statistics showing that there are far more cases of ALS
among ex-professional footballers in Italy than among the
general public have prompted Turin prosecutors to investigate
dozens of deaths from the condition.
"The latest evidence shows that there are six times as many
ALS deaths among football players as for the rest of the
population," prosecuting magistrate Raffaele Guariniello told
Sky television.
"We did comparisons with other sports -- cyclists,
basketball and volleyball players. Not a single case emerged."
ALS claimed the life of ex-Genoa captain Gianluca Signorini
at the age of 42 in 2002.
Known as Lou Gehrig's disease in the United States after the
baseball great it killed in 1941, ALS attacks the motor neurons
of the brain and spinal cord, causing swift muscle degeneration.
In the general population there are around 2.5 cases per
100,000 people a year.
"If you look at the statistics for the number of players
affected by ALS, there is reason to be worried," Italy captain
and Real Madrid defender Fabio Cannavaro told reporters last
month.
POSSIBLE CAUSES
When news of the mysteriously high ALS prevalence in Italian
football came to light, many people's thoughts turned
immediately to doping.
Guariniello said this was just one of the possible causes he
was looking at, however.
"The hypotheses we are working most on are the use of doping
substances, the cumulative trauma of being hit in the legs or
heading the ball and exposure to the toxic substances used to
maintain pitches," he said.
The biological mechanisms that cause the disease are only
partially understood, there is no cure and sufferers usually die
between two and five years after contracting it.
The alarm has shaken the Italian game into action.
Borgonovo's former Milan team mate Ruud Gullit was among the
big names from past and present who played on Wednesday in a
match organised to raise money for ALS, with Fiorentina winning
4-1 in front of 30,000 fans.
Former Fiorentina team mate Roberto Baggio was also in
attendance at Florence's Stadio Franchi.
The Italian Football Federation has decided to donate
150,000 euros from the gate receipts of next Wednesday's World
Cup qualifier against Montenegro in Lecce to fund a new task
force of scientists who will investigate the matter.
Such high rates of ALS have not been uncovered among players
in other countries, although scientists say this does not
necessarily mean the problem is limited to Italian football.
AMERICAN FOOTBALLERS
"There haven't been any well-controlled studies showing a
risk of ALS among players in the USA and the UK, but a number of
clusters have been reported," doctor Paul Wicks, a British motor
neurone disease expert, told Reuters.
"I was part of the King's College London team that did a
paper on an apparent cluster of three amateur footballers who
played in the same side in southern England at the start of this
decade.
"There were also three American footballers who played with
the San Francisco 49ers in the 1960s who then developed ALS."
Wicks said there could be a genetic predisposition to ALS
that was brought out by strong exercise, which would explain why
the disease had a higher prevalence among military veterans.
He said it was also possible that a gene was widespread
among Italian people which made carriers good at football but, at
the same time, gave them a higher chance of contracting ALS.
"Perhaps there's a genetic factor which, for example,
produces a blend of fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle that
gives the right stamina and explosive power for football,"
explained Wicks, a director of the PatientsLikeMe.com
association which contributes to research into ALS.
"But it would not give the endurance needed for cycling or
marathon running. The negative side would be an increased risk
of ALS."
Borgonovo certainly does not blame the game he loves.
"I think it's down to a genetic malformation," he told
Gazzetta dello Sport.
"Leave football alone. If I could go back, I'd put my boots
back on and score a 90th-minute goal against Juventus."
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