advertisement


Intense exercise can give higher risk of mnd

Rowed at school, (got a national trophy), played Rugby, (2nd XV), but since leaving school when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I've done sweet fa in the way of exercise other than gone for the occasional walk. Knees are starting to go now, but I'll be 74 this year.

Is there a moral to all this? Answers on a postcard please.
If you’d avoided rowing and rugger your knees might have survived longer…?
 
It's nonsense then, 'other exercises' could have been a walk

That would have fallen under 'walking for pleasure' ;)

But in all seriousness, I think the problem lies in the reporting and, really, with some of the wording used by the researchers. Throughout the meat of the article they refer to the effects of "SSOE" on ALS, where "SSOE" stands for "strenuous sport" and "other exercise", but then they go on to use the word "intense" to describe the exercise. That word then makes it into the lay reporting. Since this was a questionnaire, it's very likely that what people defined as "other exercise" probably varies greatly from person to person. But, and this is the important "but": that's why we use statistics. We need statistics to help account for the variance in the questionnaire responses and in the genetic results. By accounting for and trying to explain that variance, we can arrive at general patterns that can then be followed up for more precise effects.

Here their statistics were (IMO) fairly weak, but they were suggestive enough to merit follow-up by the medical community. Basically, if you have one of these genetic variants, it is possible that practically any form of real exercise (let's say enough to build up a sweat) can potentially increase your risk of developing motor neurone disease.

Edit: the kind of outcome I can foresee from something like this is a) following genetic sequencing, you can then seek out medical advice to moderate your exercise habits and/or b) pre-screening of professional athletes in order to communicate risk early in their careers.
 
If you’d avoided rowing and rugger your knees might have survived longer…?

I liked rugger even less than cross-country. If my school had offered proper football I'd have been in like Flynn, but because it was a poncey grammar school we got rugby union, the most boring sport known to humanity. Indeed, it embodies Schopenhauer's quote that life 'swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.'
 
I remember speculation that athletes might be more susceptible 25 years ago, when my dad developed it (he was himself quite athletic, as it happens). It would account for Lou Gehrig anyway. (Sick MND joke [Dennis Leary?]: "Poor Lou Gehrig, he should really have seen that one coming.")
 
I remember speculation that athletes might be more susceptible 25 years ago, when my dad developed it (he was himself quite athletic, as it happens). It would account for Lou Gehrig anyway. (Sick MND joke [Dennis Leary?]: "Poor Lou Gehrig, he should really have seen that one coming.")

Indeed. The journal where these researchers published has a nice thing where they make the authors put the research in context, including "Evidence before this study", which leads with this bit:

The role of physical activity as a risk factor for ALS was evaluated in a systematic review of 26 studies performed by Lacorte et al. in 2016. The authors concluded that there was insufficient evidence to draw a firm conclusion and highlighted limitations of previous studies relating to heterogeneous classification of both physical activity and ALS. They noted that none of the published literature achieved the highest quality rating in the Newcastle Ottawa Scale, which they attribute to methodological challenges posed by the rarity and severity of the disease.
So it does sound like there has been a suspicion for some time, but the rarity of the disease previously precluded robust analysis. Data sets like the UK Biobank are very powerful in that regard.
 
Astounding article on bbc saying that intense exercise can give rise to increased risk of mnd in those who are genetically vulnerable. Apparently 1 in 300 get the disease and athletes higher risk. Astonishing.

Many may know this awful disease and any research that reduces it's risk has to be welcomed . Had a colleague aged 50 who self diagnosed this and flew off to switzerland.
I’m no epidemiologist, but that figure of 1 in 300 is complete bollocks. More like 2/100,000 per year in the uk, which means about 5000 people living with the disease at any one time.
 
I liked rugger even less than cross-country. If my school had offered proper football I'd have been in like Flynn, but because it was a poncey grammar school we got rugby union, the most boring sport known to humanity. Indeed, it embodies Schopenhauer's quote that life 'swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.'
Same for me.
My loathing for union has not diminished in 55 years.
 
I’m no epidemiologist, but that figure of 1 in 300 is complete bollocks. More like 2/100,000 per year in the uk, which means about 5000 people living with the disease at any one time.

I was thinking the same (but with no knowledge until google served this up):

https://n.neurology.org/content/96/8/e1227

"We identified 7,992 MND cases, reflecting an incidence of 2.64 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.62–2.67) per 100,000 person-years and a prevalence of 9.5 (95% CI 9.1–10.0) per 100,000 persons."

Given the vastly overstated risk, and (according to Gustav - thank you) the vastly overstated correlation with exercise it seems the original BBC article is scaremongering click-bait.
 
Given the vastly overstated risk, and (according to Gustav - thank you) the vastly overstated correlation with exercise it seems the original BBC article is scaremongering click-bait.

It was likely a press release from the university. The Guardian had a similar article.

BTW that 1 in 300 figure came from a charity linked in the BBC article. I didn't dig to find the source though. Seems high indeed. I wonder if it's for a much more general condition.
 
I’m no epidemiologist, but that figure of 1 in 300 is complete bollocks. More like 2/100,000 per year in the uk, which means about 5000 people living with the disease at any one time.
yes glad you sad that ,I thought it was a bit odd
 
It was likely a press release from the university. The Guardian had a similar article.

BTW that 1 in 300 figure came from a charity linked in the BBC article. I didn't dig to find the source though. Seems high indeed. I wonder if it's for a much more general condition.

I think I figured it out. If the risk of MND is 3 per 100,000 per person per year then over 70 years a person's risk would be (70 x 3) / 100000, which equates to 1 in 476.

So an apparently very low annual incidence risk (3 in 100k) can, over the years, lead to a non-negligible lifetime risk (1 in 476).

However cancer and heart disease have a lifetime risk of something like 1 in 3 and both are reduced via exercise, so I think even if MND is 1 in 300 it's still pretty rare.
 
Intense exercise is basically the same as choosing to be an overworked donkey, why do it? Just exercise will do.

Intense exercise (or HIIT as it's commonly known) offers benefits over "just exercise". It's not for everyone, but it has its place.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/327474

Not only is it more time efficient (not everyone can take a 2 hour walk every day), but it also offers physiological advantages vs longer duration lower intensity exercise. In fact the latest thinking is that moderate exercise is the least effective, and that for optimum results about 80% of your exercise should be at a relatively easy intensity and about 20% at high intensity.
 
However cancer and heart disease have a lifetime risk of something like 1 in 3 and both are reduced via exercise, so I think even if MND is 1 in 300 it's still pretty rare.
The much greater incidence of heart disease (and other obesity related conditions) means that simply living longer from not being a lazy slob increase the ending up with something unusual
 
What a piece of shit meta analysis.

The threshold for intense exercise seems a little low. To anyone who does intense exercise. They should subset for competitive rowers, runners, cyclist and squashes.
 
What a piece of shit meta analysis.

The threshold for intense exercise seems a little low. To anyone who does intense exercise. They should subset for competitive rowers, runners, cyclist and squashes.

It wasn't a meta-analysis at all.

Sufficient data almost certainly isn't available for elite athletes, given the rarity of the condition. Something like this could only reliably e done with something like UK Biobank, and even then statistical power was wanting.
 


advertisement


Back
Top