So, how concerned should amateur goalkeepers be these days when playing the game, frequently diving and getting scrapes and abrasions, and also potentially getting cancer-causing artificial turf into their bloodstream?
You can get well padded up shoulder to wrist and the whole leg, but at a certain point some abrasions or cuts just can’t be prevented. Especially, for instance, the face in some cases.
I’m also surprised by the stats. Even allowing for foreign material entering the bloodstream, it appears that only a very tiny amount of this artificial turf is required to enter the body to cause blood-related cancers. If so, this stuff must be HIGHLY toxic.
I’m playing goalkeeper in an amateur league and although it looks that I won’t have much exposure to the artificial crumb-rubber stuff, I still want to know the straight dope on this.
(Mods, if this is more of an IMHO medical advice thing, then you can move to IMHO)
So, reading the articles, someone has a “gut feeling” about what’s causing some cancers she’s seen meanwhile a bunch of studies conclude that it’s not a problem?
from the cite:
If this material has this level of toxicity I cannot see why goalkeepers as a position are more vulnerable than field players to come into contact with this material with one exception.
A not uncommon habit of keepers to be leaning against the goalposts, bored through inactivity and picking the odd bit of crumb-rubber from their clothing or off the surface and chewing/ingesting it.
I can only give personal anecdotes. Lived on the stuff and the stuff under the stuff. Played in shorts, had turf-burns that left me looking like The English Patient…I’m doing ok so far.
Is it me, or did they not pad that article by reiterating over and over?
Also, as said above, she had a concern, some statistical analysis showed that the soccer players as a population had proportionally less cancer than other like groups in the same area.
But she still has a “concern”. Nothing wrong with that. But, time to look elsewhere if there is no causality. Maybe narrow it down to where the person who got cancer lives and see if there is something in their environment, other than the soccer field. As they are in Seattle, maybe their neighborhood is on ground that used to be a factory from post WWII? I remember a show where some neighborhoods were built on land that had PCB levels way above residential levels.
As someone who also lives in the Seattle area (and has for most of his life) I’d just assume the excessive consumption of coffee is to blame.