What Should We Eat? The Confusion and Conspiracy (part iii)

We tend to think of our sports heroes as super heroes. But often, they don’t even measure up to mortal men...

For example, one would have to go back to the days of the Negro Baseball Leagues, in the 1920’s, to find a single professional athlete who has lived to the age of 100. Centenarians are rare for the general population but even more rare for professional athletes. You would think that professional athletes who receive the best medical care, psychological, and nutritional advice and services would far outlive the general population, but they don’t. In fact, they die significantly younger than most. In fact, the average life span for professional athletes across all sports is 62 nearly a decade earlier than the general population. In Canadian professional football, it's even less at 51. How can this be true?