Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and soccer: an internet survey of 29 Italian players.

Objectives: Previous epidemiological studies reported a significantly higher risk of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in Italian male soccer players. As a consequence, sports newspapers and news agencies focused on this issue and spread the news of 51 male soccer players with a reported diagnosis of ALS.

Design: We searched news on male Italian national soccer players with a reported diagnosis of ALS quoted from January 1, 1950 to July 31, 2016 in at least two Internet web sites or in books by journalists.