Heading footballs [soccer balls] causes same brain damage as boxing - major new study

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/02/15/heading-footballs-causes-brain-damage-boxing-major-new-study/

 

Heading footballs causes same brain damage as boxing - major new study

Professional football is as risky as boxing in causing brain damage that can lead to dementia and early death, a major new investigation warns.

Scientists at University College London say years of heading the ball can cause the same type of progressive damage as suffered by heavyweight prizefighters.

They have called for urgent widescale research to establish whether repeated sub-concussive head impacts caused by heading may also be prompting dementia in the amateur game.

Meanwhile the daughter of the former England striker Jeff Astle, who died of a degenerative brain disease aged 59, criticised the football authorities indefensible and disgraceful response to issue.

Researchers conducted post-mortem examinations of the brains of five professional players, and one committed amateur, who had played for an average of 26 years and who had all suffered from dementia.

They found evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which can be caused by repeated blows to the head and is a condition known to lead to dementia.

The rate of CTE in the footballers brains was greater than the 12 per cent average found in the general population.

The players had also developed dementia around their mid-sixties, an average of ten years earlier than most people afflicted with the incurable disease.

Dr Helen Ling, the UCL scientist who led the research, said this was the first time CTE had been confirmed in a group of retired footballers.

These players had the same pathology as boxers, she said.

The most pressing question now is to ask how common dementia is among retired footballers.

If we can demonstrate that the risk is higher than the normal population then we would need to look at putting preventative strategies in place.
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