Motor Neurone Disease and intensive exercise

rick_chasey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57431412

I guess this story is more relevant than most on here.

If it's being reported correctly, it seems that there is a connection between intensive exercise and the disease and those who are more genetically predisposed to have it can increase the likelihood of getting it through intensive exercise.

Has anyone had any thoughts or views on this? I'm lucky in that I have family history but the thought did cross my mind when I was gunning it as hard as I possibly could up a short hill.

First.Aspect

This is basically an entirely useless article.

Firstly the BBC has lived up to its usual editorial standards. The article says 1 in 300 people will contract MND.

It is actually roughly 1 in 3000.

Then you have to read carefully. What it actually says is that there is an increase risk for those genetically susceptible, and further says that risk is a mix of various factors including genetic susceptibility.

So, the increased risk does not mean that the 1 in 3000 risk jumps to as much as 1 in 500 if you exercise vigorously, because it only applies to one of several risk factors.

As well, there is a good old journo headline trick of "as much as". Is this what your risk would be if you were a pro athlete? What does that mean for people who exercise vigorously a few hours a week?

All in all this boils down to being essentially almost devoid of salient information. You would just need to go to the source of the research to gain any useful information.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57431412

I guess this story is more relevant than most on here.

If it's being reported correctly, it seems that there is a connection between intensive exercise and the disease and those who are more genetically predisposed to have it can increase the likelihood of getting it through intensive exercise.

Has anyone had any thoughts or views on this? I'm lucky in that I have family history but the thought did cross my mind when I was gunning it as hard as I possibly could up a short hill.

Further to FA's point, you'd have to be daft, even with the figures in the article, to give up the benefits of vigorous exercise in return for the tiny reduction in risk of MND.

DeVlaeminck

Interesting that I've previously seen head injury/concussion linked to MND in sports people but this raises the possibility that it may not be the cause.