A study carried out on 202 ex-Football Players revealed that almost all of them had brain disease, ranging from high school football players to the NFL.
This could be seen as the largest revelation of CTE
This could be seen as one of the largest revelations of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) in recent times, which is as a result of repeated blows to the head.
There is no confirmation that all football players are found with this condition but due to the repeated concussion and symptoms that some of this former football players were displaying their families decided to contribute samples at a Boston brain bank for studies.
Dr. Ann McKee who is a neuroscientist at Boston University said that there are a lot of questions which are yet to be answered, one of which is “how common is this” among all football players and the general population?
Some players do not display signs of CTE after playing for many years
She also said that some players do not display any sign or symptom of this disease after playing for many years but this still raises the question of “how many years of playing football is too many?” and “what risk is associated with playing football genetically”. She also said that there are also some uncertainties, for example, if the lifestyle of some players which include steroids, diet, alcohol etc. also enhances or contributes to the disease in any way.
The result of the study is based on just a select sample of men who do not in any way represent the total number of football players and the symptoms and signs displayed by these donors could have been caused by other factors, Dr. Munro Cullum, a neuropsychologist at UT Southwestern Medical Centre in Dallas said and that he had no involvement in the report released.
Dr. McKee said that treatment for the disease is still unknown but that the results which were gotten from the research at the brain bank could help in having a better understanding of how to detect the disease early.
A lot of scientists have said that they believe constant and repeated head blows increase the risk of having Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy which in the long run would lead to continuous loss of brain matter and although science has revealed that Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy can only be properly diagnosed by an examination of the brain after death, some researchers have gone ahead to carry out experiments based on test conducted on the living.
