Please Don’t Let Your Children Play Football – Read These Two Articles From The New York Times With An Additional Resource From JAMA

Football’s threat to the brain now is less about concussions, those most catastrophic of head collisions, than repeated hits, the sheer repetitive smacking around of the brain inside the skull. Boston University’s C.T.E. center has estimated that the average college football player experiences 800-1,000 hits in a single season.*

*From A Lineman Became a Doctor, but Dementia Made Him Retire – He’s Only 42. By Michael Powell, Oct. 28, 2019. From The New York Times.

In addition to the two articles referenced below, please review Clinicopathological Evaluation of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Players of American Football [PubMed Abstract] [Full Text HTML] [Full Text PDF].  2017 Jul 25;318(4):360-370. doi: 10.1001/jama.2017.8334.

Please don’t let your child play football, in grade school or high school. Football is bad for your child’s brain. It will reliably cause brain damage.

Please read A Lineman Became a Doctor, but Dementia Made Him Retire – He’s Only 42. By Michael Powell, Oct. 28, 2019. From The New York Times.

Here are excerpts from the article:

T.J. Abraham’s career [as a physician] ended when his brain began to fail. His doctors blame football, and he is pushing for change.

He was an offensive lineman [in high school and college], and he gloried in the fraternity of hit and get hit, joyfully clanking helmets. Sometimes he saw stars, sometimes he puked and so what? Get back up and get back in. “I probably got my bell rung 70 times,” he said Sunday with a crooked smile.

He always knew he would get on with life. He was a top student, and in time he became an obstetrics & gynecology doctor, delivering so many babies, maybe 3,000, a gregarious guy who remembered birthdays and who could make a nervous expectant mother grin.

It was about seven years ago that the now 42-year-old Abraham said he began to notice his temper flaring without reason. His memory and judgment became flickering lamps. In a panic, he began a medical trek that ended with an inconceivable diagnosis: neurodegenerative dementia.

It was about seven years ago that the now 42-year-old Abraham said he began to notice his temper flaring without reason. His memory and judgment became flickering lamps. In a panic, he began a medical trek that ended with an inconceivable diagnosis: neurodegenerative dementia.

“When you hear the words ‘no cure’ and ‘you’re only going to get worse,’ well, that is tough,” Abraham said. “There is no light at the end of the tunnel. This was not supposed to be my life.”

As to the cause?

The brain is a terrifically complex instrument, and its misfires are not like diagnosing a busted carburetor. But doctors in Boston, Philadelphia and California agreed that all signs pointed to football as the root of Abraham’s cognitive issues, and they raised the strong possibility that one day his survivors will learn that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head, the one found — almost always posthumously — in the brains of so many football players.

Football’s threat to the brain now is less about concussions, those most catastrophic of head collisions, than repeated hits, the sheer repetitive smacking around of the brain inside the skull. Boston University’s C.T.E. center has estimated that the average college football player experiences 800-1,000 hits in a single season. [Emphasis Added]

And please also carefully read 110 N.F.L. Brains. By Joe Ward, Josh Williams and Sam Manchester, July 25, 2017. From The New York Times.

A neuropathologist has examined the brains of 111 N.F.L. players — and 110 were found to have C.T.E., the degenerative disease linked to repeated blows to the head.

In addition to the 111 brains from those who played in the N.F.L., researchers also examined brains from the Canadian Football League, semi-professional players, college players and high school players. Of the 202 brains studied, 87 percent were found to have C.T.E. The study found that the high school players had mild cases, while college and professional players showed more severe effects. But even those with mild cases exhibited cognitive, mood and behavioral symptoms.

There is still a lot to learn about C.T.E. Who gets it, who doesn’t, and why? Can anything be done to stop the degeneration once it begins? How many blows to the head, and at what levels, must occur for C.T.E. to take hold?

“It is no longer debatable whether or not there is a problem in football — there is a problem,” Dr. McKee said.

This entry was posted in Medical News. Bookmark the permalink.