The ‘disease doctors don’t want to get’ hits Italian footballers
Posted on November 9, 2008 in Other stuff, Sports
Motor neurone disease that is, the illness famed scientist Stephen Hawking suffers from.

Doctors don’t want to get it because it leaves you in a wheelchair unable to speak by normal means and, usually, you die within five years. And there’s no known cure.

But there have been a number of cases of MND striking Italian footballers recently, most notably 44-year old Stefano Borgonovo, a former AC Milan forward, who is now wheelchair-bound by the disease.

Italian neurologist Adriano Chilo, who is leading a research project into MND, points out that its incidence tends to be higher in professional sportsmen and it takes its name from an affliction suffered by US baseball star Lou Gehrig in the 1940s.

Various reasons for this have been suggested. One is the wear and tear that sportsmen suffer (the footballers most at risk are apparently midfielders, who do more tackling than anyone else), another, in Italy, is the use of pesticides on the pitches which infect the players as they collect grazes.

Others says it’s the effect on the brain of constantly heading the ball.

Another damned thing to worry about.


http://www.blatherskite.com:80/index...ig-wheelchair/