Lou Gehrig's patients tend to be former athletes

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Lou Gehrig's patients tend to be former athletes

DENVER, Apr 19 (Reuters Health) - Patients with diseases like

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis--also known as Lou Gehrig's disease--are

more likely to have been slim and athletic than those with other types

of neurological ailments, according to researchers at Columbia

University in New York.

The researchers decided to conduct the study because celebrities with

the disease have often been athletes, including baseball great Lou

Gehrig, heavyweight champion Ezzard and baseball pitcher Catfish

Hunter.

Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas and associates at Columbia University College of

Physicians and Surgeons in New York looked at questionnaires completed

by 279 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or other motor

neuron diseases and 152 " control " patients with other types of

neurologic diseases.

Motor neuron diseases are characterized by destruction of motor

neurons--the nerve cells in the brain and spine that control muscle

movement. In ALS, the disease causes progressive muscle weakness, and

after a few years, a person develops difficulty speaking, swallowing and

breathing.

Study participants were asked whether they had always been slim and

whether they had been varsity athletes in high school, college, or the

equivalent thereafter. They were also asked to record their estimated

height and weight before they became ill.

Varsity athletes were 1.7 times more likely to have motor neuron disease

as opposed to some other ailment than nonathletes, and patients who were

always slim were more than twice as likely to have motor neuron disease

compared with those who were not slim, the findings indicate.

Also, motor neuron disease patients were about 2.5 times more likely

than those with other ailments to have been normal or underweight before

they became ill.

The reason for the association is not known. Scarmeas said that athletic

status and vigorous physical activity might increase exposure to

environmental toxins, facilitate the transport of toxins across the

blood brain barrier, or increase the absorption of a toxin by the motor

neurons communicating with the lower body.

However, it is also possible that some genetic disposition to be both

slim and athletic also increases the risk of the ailment.

The findings were reported here at the 54th annual meeting of the

American Academy of Neurology.