Pro Football Players Die at a Higher Rate than Pro Baseball Players

A comparison of thousands of former athletes in the two sports finds that NFL players were more likely than MLB players to die from cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, in particular.

Written byJef Akst

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An analysis of the causes of death of 3,419 former athletes in the National Football League and 2,708 former Major League Baseball players finds that football players suffer a mortality rate nearly 1.3 times higher than baseball players. The study, published last week (May 24) in JAMA Network Open, calculated NFLers to be 2.5 times more likely to succumb to cardiovascular disease and nearly three times more likely to die from neurodegenerative disease than MLB players.

The underlying reason for the disparity is not known, and it’s unclear if it has to do with elements of the sports themselves, such as the high level of contact in football compared with baseball, and the tendency for football players to weigh more.

“It is a sobering message,” Cleveland Clinic sports cardiologist Dermot Phelan, who consults with the NFL Players’ Association and was not part of the latest analysis, ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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