Not all health and safety issues occur on the field of play. There is some research to suggest that following your favorite time could trigger disturbing medical issues or destructive addictions in some people. In the article, “Is Watching Sports Bad for Your Health? Here’s What New Research Says,” by Amanda Macmillan for Time magazine, sports are not for the faint of heart.

Serious As A Heart Attack

Macmillan writes, “Watching a sports match can stress your heart just as much as playing in the game itself, suggests a small new study in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. Researchers found that people’s pulses increased by 75 percent when they watched a hockey game on television and by 110 percent when watching one in person—equivalent to the cardiac stress of vigorous exercise.” And it doesn’t matter if your team wins or loses. The research, published by the University of Montreal, the researchers wrote, “It is not the outcome of the game that primarily determines the intensity of the emotional stress response, but rather the excitement experienced while viewing high-stakes or high-intensity portions of the game.”

The physical reaction to this intensity is no laughing matter. Those with preexisting heart problems experience increased inflammation and blood vessel constriction, which could trigger a cardiac event. There is no clear evidence that such an event would not take place without the stimulation of sports, but the research urges caution. They recommend that doctors have discussions with their patients about going overboard rooting for the home team and that it might even be a good idea to install defibrillators at sporting venues.

High Stakes Games

Some people have emotional vested interest in sports. Some have a monetary interest in the outcome of events. In “Sports Gambling Is Evolving More Rapidly Than Ever” for Forbes Magazine, author Leigh Steinberg writes, “Professional and collegiate sports have historically feared one practice most heavily over anything else: gambling. The threat has been that if an athlete, official or coach became ensconced in major gambling debt, they might accept a bribe from a gambler to alter their performance.” Indeed, she also quotes NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as saying that gambling was the number one threat to the integrity of collegiate and professional football.

On the other side of the issue, gambling addiction, aided by looser online wager regulations in state after state makes it all too easy for gambling addiction to take root. As reported in USA Today, Arnie Wexler, former executive director of the Council for Compulsive Gambling, “predicts a severe rise in gambling addiction as a result of the Supreme Court striking down the federal ban on sports betting.”

“We’ve opened up a real circus here,’’ Wexler, co-author of All Bets Are Off: Losers, Liars, and Recovery from Gambling Addiction,” told USA Today Sports. “You’re going to have so many people addicted to gambling in the next couple of years, it’s going to be crazy. We’re going to have a volcano of gambling addiction in America.”

Just as in the case of protecting student athletes, more needs to be done to establish the guardrails that will maintain the fun and integrity of sports and make it a safe playing field for all. •

Sources:

“Athletic Drug Testing,” for Clinics in Sports Medicine by Dr. Larry D. Bowers

“History of Doping,” by Dr. Ramian Abdul Aziz

UPI

“N.C.A.A. Stiffens Drug Penalties and Expands Testing in Football” for the New York Times by William C. Rhoden

“High School Sports Pose High Risk for Injury—And Opioid Painkiller Addiction,” for RiverMend Health

“Why College Athletes Are at Greater Risk for Addiction,” for The Recovery Village

“Collegiate Concussion Cases with Implications for the Sports Industry,” for Sports Business Journal

“Game Brain” by Jeanne Marie Laskas, published in 2009 by GQ magazine

“Tommy John Surgeries High Among Teens” by Delia O’Hara for Rush University Medical Center,

“Now Campaigning Against Tommy John Surgery: Tommy John” by Stan Grossfield, for the Boston Globe

University of Missouri Health Care

“Is Watching Sports Bad for Your Health? Here’s What New Research Says,” by Amanda Macmillan for Time magazine

University of Montreal

“Sports Gambling Is Evolving More Rapidly Than Ever” for Forbes Magazine, by Leigh Steinberg

USA Today Sports

“All Bets Are Off: Losers, Liars, and Recovery from Gambling Addiction,” a book by Arnie Wexler