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Big Game Could Be A Heart-Stopper

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By MALCOLM RITTER, The Associated Press

Published: January 31, 2008

NEW YORK - For rabid fans of the New York Giants and New England Patriots, this Sunday's Super Bowl won't be just a game. It may be a health hazard.

Heart attacks and other cardiac emergencies doubled in Munich, Germany, when that nation's soccer team played in World Cup matches, a new study reports.

While history suggests European soccer fans can get a bit more worked up than the average American football fan, doctors think there are some valid warnings to be shared.

"I know a little bit about the Super Bowl," study author Gerhard Steinbeck of Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich said in a telephone interview. "It's reasonable to think that something quite similar might happen."

He and his colleagues present their results in the New England Journal of Medicine. They blamed emotional stress for the heart problems, but they note that lack of sleep, overeating, wolfing down junk food, boozing and smoking might have played a role too.

Previous studies suggest that events like earthquakes and war can boost the risk of heart problems. Findings for soccer have been inconsistent.

The new paper included heart attacks, cardiac arrests, episodes of irregular heartbeat and activations of automatic implanted defibrillators. The researchers noted the number of cases reported in the greater Munich area during World Cup competition in Germany in the summer of 2006. They compared that with the totals for similar periods in 2003 and 2005, and for several weeks before and after the tournament.

In all, the study involved 4,279 patients. Analysis showed that on the seven days when the German team played, the overall number of cardiac emergencies was more than double the norm. For men, it tripled.

The effect was strongest in people with known heart disease. So on Super Bowl Sunday, such people and others with known risks for heart disease - like high blood pressure or diabetes - should take extra care of themselves, said Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

People with known heart conditions should also keep their nitroglycerin and aspirin handy, she said.

And if heart symptoms appear, Mosca said, call emergency services right away. "Don't just chew that aspirin and think it'll go away," she said.

In fact, research by David Jerrard, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland, indicates that some men do put off seeking emergency treatment if they're watching a game.

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