BEREA, Ohio -- The Cleveland Clinic announced today that researchers at the hospital found that a group of retired NFL players have significantly larger aortas when compared to men in the general population. The researchers said that further evaluation is needed as the significance of the findings is unknown.
The study, published today in "Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging," compared a self-selected sample of former NFL athletes to a presumed non-athletic control group from the Dallas Heart Study-2. Enlarged aortas are a known risk factor for life-threatening aortic dissections or aortic ruptures.
Despite fewer risk factors present in the retired players, the athletes had a significantly larger ascending aortas and were twice as likely to have larger ascending aortas.