PhD defence: Football is Medicine

This Friday at 13:00 May-Britt Skoradal will defend her PhD thesis, "Football is Medicine: Promoting healthy living and an effective means of preventing and treating lifestyle diseases".

Opponents are: Svein Arne Pettersen, professor at School of Sport Science, University of Tromsø, Norway, Susana Cristina de Araújo Póvoas, associate professor at University Institute of Maia, Portugal, and Marin Strøm, associate professor at the University of the Faroe Islands.

Supervisors: Magni Mohr, professor at the University of the Faroe Islands and Peter Krustrup, professor at the University of Southern Denmark.

In her conclusion May-Britt Skoradal writes:

"In conclusion, all four randomised controlled training intervention studies included in this thesis demonstrate that small-sided game football training for 11, 16 and 52 weeks, resulted in broad-spectrum improvements in the health profiles of schoolchildren, elderly men and women with prediabetes, and untrained premenopausal women with mild hypertension. 

The improvements included beneficial impact on health markers such as arterial blood pressure, cardiorespiratory fitness, blood lipids profile, blood glucose regulation, body composition and bone health in these different populations.

The study confirm the hypothesis that small-sided game football training improves the general health profile of various age groups and populations in terms of cardiovascular, metabolic and musculoskeletal health. Thus, football training can promote healthy living and is an effective means of preventing and treating lifestyle diseases".