(Press-News.org) The mean stress level of fans of the football club Arminia Bielefeld was 41% higher on the day of the German Football Association’s (DFB-Pokal) 2025 Cup final compared to non-match days, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The authors suggest that this reaction, known as ‘football fever’, may be driven by the intensity of fans’ emotions towards their team, each other, and the sport.
Football — also known as soccer — is the world’s most popular sport and can evoke strong physiological and emotional reactions in fans. The 2025 DFB-Pokal Cup final took place on the 24th May 2025 in the Berlin Olympic Stadium (Olympiastadion) and was the first time that Arminia Bielefeld reached this stage. The opposing team, VfB Stuttgart — who reached the final for the seventh time — beat Arminia Bielefeld 4-2 and won the Cup final for the fourth time.
Christian Deutscher, Christiane Fuchs, and colleagues analysed smartwatch data from 229 adult Arminia Bielefeld fans over a 12-week period, beginning ten days prior to the cup final and concluding ten weeks afterwards. They analysed changes in participants’ heart rates and stress levels — inferred from a combination of heart rate and heart-rate variability — and investigated the factors influencing these using survey data from a subset of 37 participants, who were 54% male and had a mean age of 39 years. The authors found that the mean stress level of participants was 41% higher on the day of the cup final compared to non-match days. Stress levels rose in the hours prior to the match, peaked just as it began, and remained elevated after it ended. Participants’ mean heart rate increased from 71 beats per minute on a non-match day to 79 beats per minute on the Cup final day. When the authors compared the smartwatch and survey data, they found that the mean heart rate was 23% higher among participants watching the match in the Olympiastadion than among those watching on television or at public gatherings. It was also 5% higher among those who had consumed alcohol, compared to those who had not.
The findings highlight the strong physical reactions of football fans to major matches. The authors note that elevated heart rates in combination with alcohol can increase the risk of adverse cardiac events such as arrhythmias. They suggest that future studies should investigate physical responses to intense events in greater detail across different types of high-stress situations.
END
Sport: ‘Football fever’ peaks on match day
2026-02-05
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Scientists describe a window into evolution before the tree of life
2026-02-05
All life on Earth shares a common ancestor that lived roughly four billion years ago. This so-called “last universal common ancestor” represents the most ancient organism that researchers can study.
Previous research on the last universal common ancestor has found that all the characteristics we see in organisms today, like having a cell membrane and a DNA genome, were already present by the time of this ancestor. So, if we want to understand how these foundational characteristics of life first emerged, then we need to be able to study evolutionary history prior to the last universal common ancestor.
In a new article ...
Survival of patients diagnosed with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic
2026-02-05
About The Study: This cohort study found that individuals diagnosed with cancer in 2020 and 2021 experienced worse short-term survival than those diagnosed between 2015 and 2019, suggesting substantial harms associated with cancer care disruptions during the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Todd Burus, PhD, email tburus@uky.edu.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2025.6332)
Editor’s Note: Please ...
Growth trajectories in infants from families with plant-based or omnivorous dietary patterns
2026-02-05
About The Study: In this cohort study, infants from vegan households had growth patterns similar to those from omnivorous households, with a higher odds of early underweight that decreased by age 24 months. In the context of developed countries, these findings seem reassuring. Further research should examine vegan diet quality and the impact of nutritional counseling during pregnancy and infancy in supporting optimal infant development.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Kerem Avital, MPH, email kerema@post.bgu.ac.il.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link ...
Korea University College of Medicine hosts lecture by Austrian neuropathology expert, Professor Adelheid Wöhrer
2026-02-05
Korea University College of Medicine recently hosted a special lecture by Professor Adelheid Wöhrer from the Institute of Neuropathology and Neuro-Molecular Pathology at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria.
The event was conducted as part of the Research Nexus Program, which seeks to expand global research networks and promote international collaboration. Under the theme Establishing a Model for the Development and Evolution of Refractory Gliomas through Korea–Austria Research Cooperation, researchers from both countries discussed strategies for joint research to better understand the complex developmental and evolutionary mechanisms of treatment-resistant ...
5-FU chemotherapy linked to rare brain toxicity in cancer patient
2026-02-05
“The patient’s symptoms resolved after permanently stopping 5-FU and administering lactulose and intravenous fluids, therefore supporting the diagnosis of hyperammonemic encephalopathy due to 5-FU.”
BUFFALO, NY — February 5, 2026 — A new case report was published in Volume 12 of Oncoscience on December 23, 2025, titled “Silent toxicity: A rare case of 5-fluorouracil-induced hyperammonemic encephalopathy.”
In this report, Areti Kalfoutzou from the National ...
JMIR Publications introduces the new Karma program: A merit-based reward system dedicated to peer review excellence
2026-02-05
(Toronto, February 5, 2026) JMIR Publications, a leader in open access scholarly publishing, today announced the launch of the new Karma Reviewer Rewards Program. This initiative introduces a specialized, merit-based framework designed to elevate and reward the critical role of peer reviewers in the scientific process.
The evolved Karma program marks a strategic shift toward a quality-focused reward model. Moving away from traditional volume-based incentives, the new system ensures that rewards ...
H5N1 causes die-off of Antarctic skuas, a seabird
2026-02-05
More than 50 skuas in Antarctica died from the high pathogenicity avian influenza virus H5N1 in the summers of 2023 and 2024, marking the first documented die-off of wildlife from the virus on the continent. That is confirmed for the first time in a study led by Erasmus MC in The Netherlands and the University of California, Davis. It published this week in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
A relative of gulls, skuas are predatory, large brown birds living mostly in polar and subpolar environments. Similar ...
Study suggests protein made in the liver is a key factor in men’s bone health
2026-02-05
New research suggests the liver plays a previously unrecognized role in bone health, but only in males.
A McGill University-led study published in Matrix Biology found that a protein made in the liver helps regulate bone growth in male mice, but not in females. The findings may help explain why men with liver disease are more likely to experience bone loss.
The protein, known as plasma fibronectin, is naturally present in blood at higher levels in men than in women, declines when the liver is damaged and builds up in bone to modulate bone formation. This suggests men rely more heavily on the protein to maintain bone strength than do women.
“About ...
Last chance to get a hotel discount for the world’s largest physics meeting
2026-02-05
Next month, thousands of scientists from around the world will convene to share new research results from across physics at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit. The conference will be held in Denver and online everywhere March 15-20.
Press registration
News media with valid APS press credentials may register for the meeting at no cost. To request press credentials, visit APS’ online newsroom. Registration will remain open throughout the meeting.
Housing information
Discounted hotel rates are available for in-person attendees at select hotels near the Colorado ...
Tooling up to diagnose ocean health
2026-02-05
Tooling up to diagnose ocean health
Field-deployable CRISPR-based biosensing platform could enable facile, real-time monitoring of marine barometer species and ecosystems
By Benjamin Boettner
(BOSTON) — Oceanic ecosystems are increasingly threatened by global warming which causes coral bleaching, species migration and, through the loss of habitats and biodiversity, food web disruptions on major scales. Also, pollutants such as plastics and other marine debris, wastewater, as well as chemical runoffs, including oil spills, cause major ecosystem disruptions. Importantly, given the interconnectedness of all life on the planet, the deteriorating health of our ...