Playing in hawking zone

MUMBAI: When you meet Stephen Hawking, the celebrated wheelchair-bound British astrophysicist, you are immediately struck by his irrepressible sense of humour. Sadly, the writer of the best-selling ''Brief History of Time'' is able to move only a few fingers and needs a voice synthesiser to speak and a special computer to write.
Yet his power of mind is so completely out of sync with a body limp with paralysing illness that you begin to wonder whether it''s an example of divine justice or devilish irony in action.
You also think of physics and mathematics and of the universe and galaxies and black holes so dense and dragon-like in their greed for hoarding glittering things that not even a glimmer of light escapes from their grasp. In all probability, football is the last thing on your mind when you meet Stephen Hawking.
Now, doctors are saying it should probably be the very first thing. The high prevalence of Lou Gehrig''s disease—also known as amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—among footballers is said to be the latest distressing piece of news about the health risks of being a pro athlete, reports ''Time''.
Mr Hawking has been living with the disease named after legendary American baseball player Lou Gehrig for so long that few people care to remember that before his diagnosis at age 21, the astrophysicist was an extremely rugged lad, equally fond of football and pub-crawling.
What is more striking, Mr Hawking''s passion for football may have an insidious connection to his affliction. The high prevalence of Lou Gehrig''s disease among footballers could well turn out to be the Faustian price of the bargain involved in becoming a ''golden'' boy like David Beckham. In January, for example, at least 40 cases of Lou Gehrig''s disease reportedly came under the magnifying glass of Italy''s top anti-drug magistrate, Raffaele Guariniello of Turin. In a normal population of 24,000—the number of soccer players in Italy''s Serie A and Serie B from 1960 to 1997—doctors might find a single case of the disease that strikes one in 50,000 people. Finding 40 cases among that number of players is "terrifying", Mr Guariniello told reporters. The high incidence "appears to be work related", he added, suspecting a link to the painkillers, especially corticosteroids, which enable players to take the field despite injury.
In hindsight, it seems doubly ironic that Lou Gehrig, considered to be the greatest first baseman in the history of baseball, was nicknamed ''Iron Horse'' for his endurance. Here was a man who had never called in sick for 14 years—for 2,130 consecutive games. Yet, at age 35, the New York Yankees'' first baseman contracted an incurable disease and two years later, at 37, the Iron Horse was dead.
Similarly, fans of the football legend ''Diesel'' Duranko were shocked when they learnt that their gigantic hero, who once tackled the redoubtable Terry Bradshaw, now needed both his hands to lift his coffee cup. "I''m 59 years old, I act like I''m 12 and feel like I''m 85," Duranko told his grieving fans. "Now I''m the child and my kids are my parents."
More recently, the Italian magistrate cited reports of at least another 20-plus previously unrecorded incidents, including Gianluca Signorini, the classy defender of Parma, Genoa and Roma, who died recently at 42. Last month, Ubaldo Nanni, who played for third division Pisa, died at 44 after three years with the illness.
Experts say the relative scarcity of research makes it difficult to substantiate the now-anecdotal link between athletes and ALS. The mystery is compounded by the fact that investigators cannot get precise information on the medications athletes have taken and doctors do not know the exact cause of Lou Gehrig''s Disease.
However, the latest study, unveiled last week in the ''Journal of the American Academy of Neurology'', suggests that ALS sufferers are more likely to have chromosomal abnormalities. Mr Guariniello also told ''Time'' that players who get ALS had a higher ratio of certain leg injuries, perhaps implicating certain treatments, including painkillers.