Sheer Heart Attack
January 31, 2008
Soccer can be a dangerous business for committed fans. In the stadiums themselves, supporters face a number of medical risks including serious bladder episodes brought on by too many half-time beers, temporary bouts of Tourette's Syndrome and, in the case of England fans, actual death through boredom. No one who follows a team with passion should take their allegiance lightly. It can seriously damage your health.
Those who have ever watched their team's chances of success end in the lottery of a penalty shoot-out will already know this. But if anyone was in doubt about the potential danger of staking your happiness on the fortune of 11 men running around on a soccer field, a group of German scientists have done the typically Teutonic thing and proved it should be avoided.
Taking German fans who followed their team through the 2006 World Cup as their case study group, the men in lab coats from Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians University have discovered that the risk of a heart attack or other cardiovascular problem in male fans increased three-fold on days when the German team was in action.
It wasn't just irrational and emotionally charged fans on the edge of their stadium seats who were suffering. Victims also included over-stressed fans watching the game in the comfort of their own homes. And they weren't all men, either: Female fans also recorded a rise in emergencies, with the amount of heart incidents in women rising by 82 percent during the tournament.
The researchers came to their conclusions after reviewing 4,279 medical reports from the seven days the German team played in the 2006 World Cup, the 24 days when matches involved teams from other countries, and 242 other days in 2003, 2005 and 2006.
Paying the penalty
The research showed that cardiac emergencies usually occurred within two hours of the start of a match, which would explain why the largest number of attacks occurred during the June 30 quarter-final in which Germany defeated Argentina in a dramatic penalty shoot-out. After 90 minutes of regular time and an additional 30 minutes of extra-time, German fans found themselves entering the danger zone and 64 of them suffered heart attacks as a result.
The next game, Germany's semi-final loss to Italy which went into extra-time, produced almost as many heart attacks.
"Apparently, of prime importance for triggering a stress-induced event is not the outcome of a game -- a win or a loss -- but rather the intense strain and excitement experienced during the viewing of a dramatic match, such as one with a penalty shoot-out," the research report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, stated.
Hosts' march raises pulses
Watching Jürgen Klinsmann's team throughout the World Cup on home soil was a potential killer for German fans as six of the seven games in which the team participated were associated with an increase in the number of cardiac emergencies.
The only game which produced no spike in heart-related problems was the third-place match in which Germany defeated Portugal 3-1. Presumably, with the main prize out of contention, more of the pressure was off and fans could relax their heart valves.
While the excitement of Germany's march to the semi-finals was a contributing factor to the increase in heart episodes, others were cited by the report. Fans might have been subject to risk factors such as lack of sleep, overeating, consumption of junk food, alcohol and smoking during the World Cup, which would not have helped to keep them in tip-top physical condition for the rigors of supporting Germany.