Investigation of Pituitary Dysfunction in Retired Professional Soccer Players

Abstract

Introduction: It is well-known that pituitary dysfunction can develop as a result of traumatic brain injuries. One reason for such injuries is collision during contact sports. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of heading the ball and concussion on pituitary function in retired soccer players. Methods: Thirty-two retired soccer players, with an average age of 43.38 ± 5.49 (35-59) and 26 sedentary individuals with an average age of 43.31±6.38 (35-59) were included in this study. The subjects were questioned about their soccer-playing background, history of head trauma and concussion, and cardiometabolic diseases. One day one, blood samples were taken to investigate the baseline hematologic and biochemical parameters. On day two, the ACTH stimulation test was conducted, and on day three, glucagon stimulation tests were carried out. Resting EKG, transthoracic ECHO and exercise stress tests (for MET values) were also conducted. For the statistical analysis, The Student's t-test was used to compare the results of the two groups. The level of significance adopted was p<0.05. Results: It was identified that 5 out of 32 soccer players (16%) had experienced concussion during their soccer careers. The growth hormone (GH) levels of 3 retired soccer players (9.2%) and 3 sedentary individuals (10%) was below 1 ng/dl, which was accepted as the threshold value. There were no significant differences between hematological, biochemical and cardiometabolic parameters of the soccer players with low GH levels and those with normal GH levels. There was no significant relationship between the number of headers performed and GH deficiency. Conclusion: Although low GH levels were detected in almost 10% of the retired soccer players, the frequency of hypopituitarism was not higher than in the sedentary control group. Level of evidence I; Prognostic Studies.

The use of biofluid markers to evaluate the consequences of sport-related subconcussive head impact exposure: a scoping review

“…Nine studies investigated the effects of RSHI on the hormonal response (see Additional file 1: Table S7), with the median sample size of 22 (range 11 to 68) contact sport athletes. One case study reported the acute semi-acute effects of RSHI on hormone levels in a kickboxer [113], and eight studies reported the chronic effects [100,103,104,107,111,[114][115][116]. Five studies that examined the chronic effects of RSHI in boxing and American football revealed growth hormone secretory deficiencies [103,104,114,115], anti-hypothalamus and anti-pituitary antibodies presence [116], insulin-like growth factor 1 [103,114] and adrenocorticotropic hormone [114,115] deficiency, and hypogonadism [104].…”

“…Five studies that examined the chronic effects of RSHI in boxing and American football revealed growth hormone secretory deficiencies [103,104,114,115], anti-hypothalamus and anti-pituitary antibodies presence [116], insulin-like growth factor 1 [103,114] and adrenocorticotropic hormone [114,115] deficiency, and hypogonadism [104]. RSHI exposure in soccer players revealed no long-term effects on hormonal responses [100,111]. Overall, sustained exposure to RSHI appears to increase the risk of pituitary dysfunction in contact sport athletes.…”