Original articleElite Athletes Live Longer Than the General Population: A Meta-Analysis
Section snippets
Data Sources and Searches
We followed the recommendations of the Meta-analyses Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology group9 [see the checklist in Supplemental Appendix 1 (available online at http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org)]. We searched for publications on longevity and professional or elite athletes (with no restriction on the starting date and up to March 31, 2014). The search terms longevity or survival and professional, elite, or Olympic athletes were used, or combinations of 1 or more of these terms, with
Results
From an initial identification of 88,192 studies, 88,138 were excluded (ie, not potentially relevant studies, congress abstracts, and duplicated material). From the remaining 54 potentially relevant studies, 44 studies were excluded with reasons, namely, not written in English (n=3), SMR not reported (n=38), and duplicated or nonelite athletic population (n=3).
Ten studies,13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 including a total of 42,807 athletes (707 women), met all the inclusion criteria (
Discussion
The results of this meta-analysis indicate that elite athletes live longer than the general population. Such a powerful effect on human longevity is comparable, if not higher, to that reported for vigorous but less competitive exercise. For instance, the all-cause SMR of well-trained recreational athletes (Dutch endurance ice-skaters) was 0.76 (95% CI, 0.68-0.85).23
Growing evidence indicates that intense endurance exercise might produce cardiac alterations (mainly increased risk of atrial
Conclusion
Although more research is needed using more homogeneous cohorts and a more proportional representation of both sexes, the evidence available indicates that elite athletes (mostly men) live longer than the general population, which suggests that the beneficial health effects of exercise, particularly in decreasing CVD and cancer risk, are not necessarily confined to moderate doses. Future studies might elucidate whether the present high demands of professional sports participation also translate
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Dr Pedro J. Marín for his advice and thoughtful comments.
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