Study finds that Olympic winners die earlier than regular humans

[Supersonic 49,376]

German scientist Lutz Thieme (who is also a former professional swimmer) has recently published a study in the German Journal of Sport & Exercise research which found that German Olympians and specifically German Olympic winners on average die significantly earlier that the average German citizen. His study gathered data from over 6000 German Olympians that took part in the games between 1956 and 2016 (the past 60 years) and found that specifically younger athletes (ages 15-34, who took part in the games between 1995-2016) have a mortality rate that is 10 times higher than the average German of the same age group. Athletes between the ages 35-64, who took part in the games between 1995-2016 are two times more likely to die than the average German.

Another finding he had was that despite the Olympic system of former East Germany being deeply intertwined with doping and the previous general scientific consensus being that doping caused many East German athletes do die prematurely, the overall stats now paint a completely different picture: East Germany's mortality rate among its top athletes was continuously lower, than the mortality rate of the average German.

His findings sparked a controversial debate in German sport politics about ethics and whether it is ethically justifiable to push athletes to their extremes when there's scientific evidence that olympic participation and the correlated training causes a shortened life expectancy and premature deaths.

There have been several studies world wide that suggest similar findings, 2006 study on German soccer players also found that top athletes were victims to higher mortality rates, especially younger player, a Finnish study came to the same conclusions.

https://www.spiegel.de/sport/olympia/olympia-sieger-sterben-frueher-brisante-fragen-zu-folgen-des-leistungssports-a-06b9026b-798f-4277-b2a7-7a748d23517c?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Study in German: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12662-020-00654-x#Sec9

[RAMROD 117,057]

Who knew that being an athlete who is healthy is actually also part of "live fast, die young" ideology?? Certainly not me.

[reysus 1,064]

I believe it. In many sports, you tax your body by pushing it to the limit to achieve at the highest level. For endurance athletes like cyclists and swimmers, the amount of food you have to consume every day puts a huge strain on your digestive tract and has been associated with some athletes even developing stomach cancer. I can only imagine that other strength-focused sports have similar problems associated with them. 

[Maleficent 6]

11 minutes ago, RAMROD said:

Who knew that being an athlete who is healthy is actually also part of "live fast, die young" ideology?? Certainly not me.

I would also be interested to know how quickly/severely these athletes let themselves go after retirement/winning the gold...?

[funkyhaus 7,697]

Looks like I’ll start training for the Olympics so 

[Terrence 1,206]

Welp my bf is an ex Olympic athlete.. I'll just forget I read this

[MANiCURE 6 10,306]

Glad I'm not an Olympic winner then 

[Illuminati 15,965]

Always ahead of others, smh

[xoxo Craig 55,649]

It depends on the sport, and also if the athletes were on performance enhancing drugs. 

[gumzy3000 7,901]

Could it be possible that they worked so hard to get those medals that after, they stopped being healthy and there bodies couldn’t cope with the stress after being healthy for so long? 

[xoxo Craig 55,649]

50 minutes ago, reysus said:

I believe it. In many sports, you tax your body by pushing it to the limit to achieve at the highest level. For endurance athletes like cyclists and swimmers, the amount of food you have to consume every day puts a huge strain on your digestive tract and has been associated with some athletes even developing stomach cancer. I can only imagine that other strength-focused sports have similar problems associated with them. 

If you know what your doing, you should be fine. And as a swimmer myself, I can tell you that you don't need to eat THAT much...no where near what people say you should. Also, swimming is a very low contact sport with very low chance of injury. The cardiovascular systems used, the anaerobic and aerobic systems used, will benefit someone for life... and if they know what they are doing interms of trainin, they will be fine

The sports that are most concerning is not strength sports, but high impact sports. Boxing and football for example... there's only so much you can take being knocked around and sustaining head blows before your body breaks down

[dit 46,738]

I remember reading something about how people who push themselves too much physically can actually damage key organs in their body. Being healthy and athletic is great but literally EVERYTHING in to be in moderation...even a healthy lifestyle needs to not go over the top it seems.

[reysus 1,064]

3 minutes ago, xoxo Craig said:

If you know what your doing, you should be fine. And as a swimmer myself, I can tell you that you don't need to eat THAT much...no where near what people say you should. Also, swimming is a very low contact sport with very low chance of injury. The cardiovascular systems used, the anaerobic and aerobic systems used, will benefit someone for life... and if they know what they are doing interms of trainin, they will be fine

The sports that are most concerning is not strength sports, but high impact sports. Boxing and football for example... there's only so much you can take being knocked around and sustaining head blows before your body breaks down

I can't speak for swimming as much, but cycling is still a low-contact sport (except for crashes obviously) but top Tour de France level riders are not very healthy. Sure, they're extremely fit, but they have so little body fat and during 3-week long races and peak training periods, they have to consume so much food, and a lot of them still end up losing weight because it's unavoidable (and keep in mind that these athletes have a whole team of sports nutritionists and coaches behind them). Their bodies are extremely fragile. Of course aerobic activity is healthy, but the Olympic level is just something else. And of course head injuries are never good and far worse than we even understand right now, but 'low-impact' sports still pose other risks.

[BillieGOAT 5,272]

I believe it 100%. Even if it isn’t steroids, the supplements that many of those athletes use destroy your kidneys, etc.

Also the physical strain that their regiments put on their bodies has to be insane

[migamiga 12,102]

being a couch potato has it's benefits