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> On average, victims of East German doping die 10 to 12 years earlier than the rest of the population. While the comparison with the general population is int

> On average, victims of East German doping die 10 to 12 years earlier than the rest of the population. While the comparison with the general population is interesting, I would also like to see a comparison with Olympic athletes in general. To be an Olympics athlete, even without doping, you have to be an outlier physically. In addition, even without doping, there is an intensive training regimen and specialized diet. There is also ultra competitive environment and high stress of competing in front of the whole world and knowing that a fraction of a second may be all the difference between glory winning the gold medal and the obscurity of 4th place. Finally, there is the whiplash where for a few weeks you are the center of attention and then when the Olympics are over, are more or less forgotten, even if you did win the gold. This environment is pretty likely to have physical and psychological consequences, even apart from the doping, and it would be interesting to see what they are in comparison to doping.

antman 4y ago
And to do that comparison, where will they find an East German Olympic athlete undoped?
- samatman 4y ago
  This was a more ethnically homogenous era for the German nations. West Germany is a reasonable control group.
  - account42 4y ago
    Is it? Genetics aren't the only thing that affects livespan.
    - samatman 4y ago
      This is correct, so it's a good thing there is an enormous amount of data about the lives of East and West Germans which can be used to control for those differences as well.
      - mpol 4y ago
        How do you control for differences in air pollution and water pollution, differences in food, differences in stress levels. There are too many unknowns in these calculations.
        samatman 4y ago
        10 to 12 years is a large effect size.
- tgv 4y ago
  Since it's relative to their direct environment, the only major compensation required would be the amount of training, I think. For the rest, you can compare them to athletes (at similar age and career at the time of the doping) all over the world.
mattmcknight 4y ago
In general the lifespan effects on East and West German Olympians were more modest than 10 to 12 years, but I found this one article which also found a higher mortality risk for German Olympians in general. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7739809/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7739809/
smackay 4y ago
Female and male US Olympic athletes live 5 years longer than their general population counterparts: a study of 8124 former US Olympians https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/4/206 https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/4/206
- thesz 4y ago
  What about USSR Olympic athletes? Especially before USSR collapse. Salient words at the very start of the article are "former athletes... suffer from poverty". East German Olympic athletes suffered poverty, which is a risk factor in any part of the world. That's why I am asking about USSR statistics before USSR collapse - at that time weightlifters were treated very well, much like at US today, if not better.
  - smcl 4y ago
    It may be a little hard to do this though, the athletes often weren't aware they were doping and to what degree, so you don't really have a good way to split them into doped/non-doped cohorts to do this sort of analysis.
    - thesz 4y ago
      I am talking about poverty, primarily. Athletes from Eastern Germany were trown into poverty when two halves of Germany reunited. Using USSR and/or Eastern Germany athletes prior to the reunion would provide some kind of baseline to compare to. As well as contemporary US athletes.
- BLanen 4y ago
  Yea but the (former) East German population lives a lot healthier than the general US population.
  - woodpanel 4y ago
    While Eastern Germans on average lived >4 years longer than a USAmerican in 1991, that lead has evaporated as of now: US citizens live a couple of months longer than Eastern Germans (and Western Germans). [1] https://www.rki.de/EN/Content/Health_Monitoring/Health_Reporting/GBEDownloadsJ/JoHM_S02_2019_30_years_after_fall_Berlin_Wall.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.rki.de/EN/Content/Health_Monitoring/Health_Repor... [2] https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA?utm_medium=explore&mprop=lifeExpectancy&popt=Person&hl=en# https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA?utm_medium=explore...

antman 4y ago

And to do that comparison, where will they find an East German Olympic athlete undoped?

samatman 4y ago
This was a more ethnically homogenous era for the German nations. West Germany is a reasonable control group.
- account42 4y ago
  Is it? Genetics aren't the only thing that affects livespan.
  - samatman 4y ago
    This is correct, so it's a good thing there is an enormous amount of data about the lives of East and West Germans which can be used to control for those differences as well.
    - mpol 4y ago
      How do you control for differences in air pollution and water pollution, differences in food, differences in stress levels. There are too many unknowns in these calculations.
      - samatman 4y ago
        10 to 12 years is a large effect size.
tgv 4y ago
Since it's relative to their direct environment, the only major compensation required would be the amount of training, I think. For the rest, you can compare them to athletes (at similar age and career at the time of the doping) all over the world.

mattmcknight 4y ago

In general the lifespan effects on East and West German Olympians were more modest than 10 to 12 years, but I found this one article which also found a higher mortality risk for German Olympians in general. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7739809/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7739809/

smackay 4y ago

Female and male US Olympic athletes live 5 years longer than their general population counterparts: a study of 8124 former US Olympians https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/4/206 https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/4/206

thesz 4y ago
What about USSR Olympic athletes? Especially before USSR collapse. Salient words at the very start of the article are "former athletes... suffer from poverty". East German Olympic athletes suffered poverty, which is a risk factor in any part of the world. That's why I am asking about USSR statistics before USSR collapse - at that time weightlifters were treated very well, much like at US today, if not better.
- smcl 4y ago
  It may be a little hard to do this though, the athletes often weren't aware they were doping and to what degree, so you don't really have a good way to split them into doped/non-doped cohorts to do this sort of analysis.
  - thesz 4y ago
    I am talking about poverty, primarily. Athletes from Eastern Germany were trown into poverty when two halves of Germany reunited. Using USSR and/or Eastern Germany athletes prior to the reunion would provide some kind of baseline to compare to. As well as contemporary US athletes.
BLanen 4y ago
Yea but the (former) East German population lives a lot healthier than the general US population.
- woodpanel 4y ago
  While Eastern Germans on average lived >4 years longer than a USAmerican in 1991, that lead has evaporated as of now: US citizens live a couple of months longer than Eastern Germans (and Western Germans). [1] https://www.rki.de/EN/Content/Health_Monitoring/Health_Reporting/GBEDownloadsJ/JoHM_S02_2019_30_years_after_fall_Berlin_Wall.pdf?__blob=publicationFile https://www.rki.de/EN/Content/Health_Monitoring/Health_Repor... [2] https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA?utm_medium=explore&mprop=lifeExpectancy&popt=Person&hl=en# https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA?utm_medium=explore...