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Precocity-longevity Effects In Sport

2015; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 47; Issue: 5S Linguagem: Inglês

10.1249/01.mss.0000478632.00087.72

1530-0315

Srdjan Lemez, Nick Wattie, Chris I. Ardern, Joseph Baker,

Sports Performance and Training

Investigations into the precocity-longevity hypothesis (PLH) have suggested that early high career achievement has a negative impact on the longevity of eminent persons (i.e., presidents, prime ministers, etc.) and professional baseball players. PURPOSE: Our purpose was to further examine the relationship between precocious achievement and lifespan differences in athlete populations; in particular, we considered different statistical approaches (e.g., survival vs. correlation) on this relationship. METHODS: The effects of debut age on longevity were examined in National Basketball Association (NBA) and Canadian-born National Hockey League (NHL) players. Both alive and deceased players were investigated using descriptive, correlation, regression, and survival analyses, also controlling for debut age, playing position, years played, and death age. RESULTS: Descriptively, median lifespan for early achievers was higher than it was for late-achievers in NBA players who debuted between 1947-1979 (N = 1847; 83.5 y vs. 81.5 y). In a subsample of deceased players from the 1940s and 1950s (n = 377), age of entry was positively correlated with age of death (r = 0.26, p < .001), and was a significant predictor of lifespan [F(1,376) = 27.04, p < .001]. Further, in Canadian-born NHL players who died between 1917-2010 (n = 937) debut age (M = 23.09) was correlated with death age (M = 68.27; r = .071, p < .001). Alternatively, the use of Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression survival analyses did not support the PLH in the NBA [1947-1979 debut; χ2 (1, N = 1847) = 2.53, p = .11], even after adjusting for playing position and decade of playing debut (Hazard Ratio: 1.06, 95% Confidence Interval: 0.86-1.32), nor in the ice-hockey sample [1917-1986 debut; χ2 (1, N = 2971) = 2.35, p = 0.12], after adjusting for playing position and years played (HR: 0.91, 95% CI: 0.79-1.05). CONCLUSION: These data suggest that the type of statistical analysis influences support for the PLH. Future analytical strategies must be exceedingly cautious in circumventing potential biases when testing this hypothesis in both athlete (e.g., National Football League) and eminent samples (e.g., Nobel Prize recipients).