In honor of one of the most lucrative American holidays happening this very weekend, I thought I’d explore sports and infectious diseases. Specifically, contact sports and skin infections! Since starting this blog, I’ve gathered that readers just love reading about transmissible skin infections, so what could be better than watching the Super Bowl and knowing just exactly what kind of diseases could possibly be smeared between the players of the Patriots and Giants?
There is a glut of infectious diseases that one can acquire from dabbling in combat or contact sports such as American or Aussie-style football, rugby, wrestling, and sumo. In fact, skin infections are the most common injury associated with all sports (1). All that body bashing and face-to-face smearing in contact sports does wonders for spreading skin or cutaneous infections. A number of these ailments are common to us non-athletic mortals – athlete’s foot, jock rash and ...
