81–90 of 206 posts
This study was made possible because of autopsies. If autopsies were standard practice in the US this would have been discovered years, if not decades ago.
Playing football is almost certainly bad for your brain, but this article does a terrible job of making that case. The doctor in charge of the study says as much: > The set of players posthumously tested by Dr. McKee is far from a random sample of N.F.L. retirees. “There’s a tremendous selection bias,” she has cautioned, noting that many families have donated brains specifically because the former player showed sympt…
9% chance, the best possible case given the current data, of a horrible, slow, lingering death 20 years later is still unacceptable . What's the rate for getting mesothelioma after working with asbestos?
But suffice it to say that, surprisingly, AFAICT for even exceptionally heavy occupational exposure (e.g. mining asbestos or removing asbestos insulation) lifetime risks of developing mesothelioma seem to be well below 10%, and possibly even below 1%.
Essentially, it's not even close to a representative sample of former NFL players.
It would be the same as people who had knee problems, then were found to have arthritis in their knees after an autopsy.
I would be very careful to say that all (or almost all) NFL players will have CTE when they finish football.
I have seen more research on people's brains where they categorize them in two types, ones that recover from brain trauma and others that don't. For me, that seems more likely.
If you are an NFL player with the type of brain that recovers well, you probably will be fine later in life. If you have a brain that just doesn't seem to do well with that, then you could develop CTE. That would be my guess.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The NFL isn't a 10 years old league, there's plenty of players who passed away. If anything there would be more examples since equipment was worse before and there were less rules that protected players, especially top/crown helmet leading tackles which started getting penalized with 15yd only in 2013.
I think the prevalence of concussions in football compared to rugby is proof that "better equipment" doesn't prevent concussions. It has the paradoxical effect of causing them. Better shoulder pads allow for people to launch their bodies without fear of separating their shoulders. Conversely, helmets are not designed to protect the brain, only to prevent skull fractures. Thus, I don't think your argument holds water.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. Heading soccer balls is proven to at least temporarily reduce IQ. I've never let my kids play that sport. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/1... http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/soccer-headers-concussi...
So what are the safer competitive team sports for kids to participate in?
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator#Victory_and_defeat
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. Heading soccer balls is proven to at least temporarily reduce IQ. I've never let my kids play that sport. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/1... http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/soccer-headers-concussi...
So what are the safer competitive team sports for kids to participate in?
Crew, tennis, baseball, swimming, golf, all of track and field, etc.
I'm more interested in what happens to the brain with youth soccer. Bigger problem than a couple hundred pro athletes.
I agree. Heading soccer balls is proven to at least temporarily reduce IQ. I've never let my kids play that sport. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/1... http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/health/soccer-headers-concussi...
Washington Post: 14 men participating in the study. Each was asked to perform a rotational header — redirecting the soccer ball — 20 consecutive times during 10-minute sessions.
tiny sample size + 20 consecutive headers in 10 minutes is astronomically rare occurrence in soccer, 3 headers in 10 minutes is incredibly rare. Even with this methodology they report *the alterations appeared to clear within 24 hours.
CNN: "Concussions in soccer mostly occur from player-to-player and player-to-ground contact. Heading is involved in only 15% to 25% of concussions in soccer, and most of those are a result of poorly executed headers where two players hit heads,"
So most concussions are from bumping heads, which is a possibility in any contact sport.
The authors are playing to a theme here, rather than objectively reporting results.
[1] http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2645104