Giving a major jolt to the enthusiasm of kick boxers, a new study suggests that injuries incurred by a kick boxer during a combat may cause damage to the pituitary gland, giving way to several mental as well as physical ailments like irritating behavior, memory loss, decreased sex drive, slackened metabolism, etc.
Researchers have given way to this assumption after measuring the levels of different hormones that this gland elutes in 22 amateur kick boxers (16 men and 6 women) and healthy people of the same age and sex who didn’t play kickboxing. During the course of study, these researchers found that 27% of those kick boxers were having deficiency of, at least, one hormone. Throwing more light on the findings of this study, Professor Fahrettin Kelestimur, who led the research said:
Our study shows that kickboxers experience an increased risk of suffering from hypopituitarism, a condition where the pituitary fails to produce enough hormones.
This is quite an informative study, which stresses upon the need of proper safety during kickboxing competition. Moreover, if we look at the findings of this from a wider perspective than it does mean that around a million people around the world, who participate in kickboxing are at an increased risk of pituitary failure.
However, it is quite sad to know that some kickboxing lovers are considering the findings of this study quite trivial as the following words of a spokesman of the World Kickboxing Association states:
I have never heard of any such damage.
Personally, I believe that here is grim need of rational cogitation over the findings of this study so that precautions, required for the safety of kick boxers, may find their proper place in this brave sport. Moreover, participants of this game should be screened periodically to find out whether their pituitary gland is working properly or not.
Image credit: Muscle Bomb
Via: BBC