AIMAN INAM

MANCHESTER: Bad news for football aficionados! Playing college football could augment the odds of mounting heart syndromes, claimed a novel study.

The study ascertained that the chances of having heart disease are linked with the specific sort of positions such as linemen, whose job is to obstruct and tackle, are more prone to mount high blood pressure as compare to the players in other poses.

It has been proven in former studies that professional linemen have been reported with an escalated menace of dying from heart disease.

So as to determine this, the panel of investigators here has analyzed the records of some 87 freshmen athletes from the Harvard University football team.

Their findings suggested that some 60 percent of the linemen had been reported with pre-hypertension. Whereas, approximately 30 percent had hypertension.

The associate director of the Cardiovascular Performance Program from Massachusetts General Hospital and the study lead author, Dr. Aaron Baggish noted: “At the end of the season, cardiac imaging showed changes to the structures of the linemen’s hearts that were concerning in this population of young, otherwise healthy athletes and that raise questions about long-term health implications.”

The scientists have reported their findings in the paper published in the journal JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.