Mean Age of Death, Longevity and Incidence of Violent Death Among Various Elite Sportsmen Categories

There is common opinion that moderate intensity physical activity during leisure time is associated with reduced mortality in general population [1,2]. During last years considerable attention was paid to the athlete life span and longevity [2-7]. It was shown that some elite sportsmen live longer however another sportsman live shortly than people does not involved big sport. These contradictions could be depending on variability of material for investigations of parameters of life span, type of selection groups of different sport and many other factors. 65% to 70% of rate of aging and longevity of humans determined by social and economic conditions and life style [1] whereas genetic factors have an important but significantly smaller impact on aging [8]. Lorry drivers, miners, seamen, and some other professionals have a feature of accelerated aging and increased risk of premature death [6]. At the same time, persons which received public signs of their success or excellence from a state or from professional societies (Nobel prize winners, Oscar or popular competitions winners, members of national academies, etc) live longer than ordinary citizens [8-14].


Editorial
There is common opinion that moderate intensity physical activity during leisure time is associated with reduced mortality in general population [1,2]. During last years considerable attention was paid to the athlete life span and longevity [2][3][4][5][6][7]. It was shown that some elite sportsmen live longer however another sportsman live shortly than people does not involved big sport. These contradictions could be depending on variability of material for investigations of parameters of life span, type of selection groups of different sport and many other factors. 65% to 70% of rate of aging and longevity of humans determined by social and economic conditions and life style [1] whereas genetic factors have an important but significantly smaller impact on aging [8]. Lorry drivers, miners, seamen, and some other professionals have a feature of accelerated aging and increased risk of premature death [6]. At the same time, persons which received public signs of their success or excellence from a state or from professional societies (Nobel prize winners, Oscar or popular competitions winners, members of national academies, etc) live longer than ordinary citizens [8][9][10][11][12][13][14].
We analyzed the data on age of death mentioned in Wikipedia 57914 males professionally involved in the 25 of sport disciplines (Table 1). There is significant difference in the mean age of death (MAD) between some of them. Thus, maximum MAD was in yachtsmen (sailors) (77.1 ± 0.88 years) and minimal -in auto-and moto-sportsmen (62.0 ± 0.71 years), that was 15.1 years difference (p<0.001).
Short living sportsmen included the into 4th quartile of MAD was between 62 and 68 years and were presented by auto-and motorsport, climbing, wrestling, heavy athletics, football (soccer), and, surprisingly, chess players. It could be suggested that these extremely physically and psychologically hard sport disciplines are responsible for more short life span. However, among of sportsmen related to the second and the third quartiles (68 to 71 years and 71 to 73 years) were observed such energy consuming sport disciplines as the ice hockey, American football, bike, rugby, rowing, basketball, gymnastics, tennis. The longliving sportsmen, related to the 1 st quartile (73 to 77 years) were involved into "aristocratic" sports (sailing, fencing, equestrian) and also into so hard sports as skis and swimming. Chase et al. [3] studied mortality in 40,547 men age 20-90 years who completed a health examination during 1971-2003. Total of 3,386 death occurred during 543,330 man-years of observation. After adjustment for age, body-mass index, smoking status, alcohol intake, and family history of cardiovascular disease, swimmers had 53%, 50%, and 49% lower allcause mortality risk than did men who were sedentary, walkers, or runners, respectively (p<0.05 for each).
We have analyzed the incidence of violent death among persons involved into various sports.
Incidence of suicides was maximal among tennis players (12.0%) and minimal (0.08%) in rowing sportsmen. The rate of accidentdependent death was maximal among climbing and auto-motosportsmen (34.3% and 30.27%) that correlate with high risk of traumas in these sports. 14.7% of accidence death was among skis sportsmen, 9.88% of accident death was among bike riders, and 8.29% at equestrain sports and minimal-among fields hockey (1.00) and cricket players (1.13).
In comprehensive review on mortality and longevity in elite athletes [6] it was shown significant differences depending on sport specialty. An important challenge to mortality research in sport is the lack of data on the health behavior of athletes post retirement. Teramoto and Bugnum [2] found a trend towards endurance (e.g., long-distance runners) and mixed-sport (e.g. soccer) athletes having more favorable survival outcomes relative to power sport (e.g. weightlifters) athletes and the general population. Our preliminary analysis of mean age of death, longevity and incidence of violent death (suicide and accident) shows that their variability depends not only on energy flow and intensity but also on psychological factors which are significant for success and victory in each sport discipline. We are open for collaboration in analyses of our database on sportsmen involved in various sport.   Table 1: Variation in mean age of death of sportsmen, rate of long-livers sportsmen and incidence of violence death among them.