What is MND and Do Sportspeople More Likely to Receive a Diagnosis?
Motor neurone disease impacts nerve cells located in the brain and spine, that instruct your muscle tissue how to function.
This causes them to lose strength and stiffen gradually and usually affects your walking, speak, consume food and respire.
This is a quite uncommon disease that is most common in people over 50, but adults of all ages can be affected.
A person's lifetime risk of developing MND is 1 out of 300.
About five thousand people in the UK will have the condition at any given moment.
Researchers are not sure the cause of MND, but it is likely to be a combination of the genes - or inherited characteristics - you inherit from your parents when you are delivered, and other environmental influences.
For up to 10% of people with MND, specific genes play a much larger role.
There is usually a family history of the disease in these cases.
What are the First Signs of the Disease?
MND affects everyone differently.
Not everyone has the identical signs, or experiences them in the same order.
The disease can progress at different speeds too.
Some of the most common signs are:
- loss of muscle strength and muscle spasms
- stiff joints
- problems with how you speak
- complications involving swallowing, eating and drinking
- weakened coughing
Is There a Treatment?
No definitive treatment, but there is optimism coming from therapies focused on various types of MND.
MND is not a single illness - it is actually several that result in the death of motor neurones.
A new drug known as tofersen is effective in only one in 50 individuals, however it has been shown to slow - and in certain instances even reverse - some of the symptoms of MND.
It has been referred to as "absolutely groundbreaking" and a "real moment of optimism" for the entire condition.
Even though the drug has recently been approved in the EU, it is not currently accessible in the UK.
Just one pharmaceutical presently approved for the treatment of MND in the UK and approved by the NHS.
Riluzole could decelerate the advancement of the disease and increase survival by a few months, but it does not reverse harm.
Determining Life Expectancy for MND?
Certain individuals can live for many years with MND, such as theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed at the twenty-two years old and survived until 76.
But for the majority, the illness progresses quickly and life expectancy is just a few years.
According to the charity MND Association, the condition kills a third of people within a twelve months and over 50% within two years of identification.
As the neurons stop working, ingestion and breathing become increasingly difficult and many people need nutritional support or respiratory aids to help them stay alive.
Are Athletes More Likely to Be Diagnosed?
The precise reason has not yet been found, but top-level sportspeople seem disproportionately affected by MND.
Two studies from 2005 and 2009 showed that soccer players have an elevated chance of contracting MND.
A 2022 study by the University of Glasgow involving four hundred ex- Scotland rugby athletes concluded they had an increased risk of acquiring the disease.
Researchers also found that rugby players who have experienced multiple concussions have biological differences that may make them more susceptible to contracting MND.
The MND Association acknowledges there is a "correlation" between collision sports and MND.
It added that while the athletes researched were had a greater chance to acquire MND, it did not prove the athletic activities directly led to the disease.
The organization also emphasises that "reported MND instances in this research is remains quite small, and so concluding there is a definite increased risk could be misinterpreted if this is merely a grouping due to statistical coincidence".
Multiple high-profile sports figures have been diagnosed with the condition in the past few years.
This encompasses ex- rugby union players, footballers, and cricket athletes.
In the United States, baseball player Lou Gehrig succumbed to the condition aged 39.
