Footballers could be at risk of dementia from blows to the head, study suggests

Findings show potential link between repeated sub-concussive head impacts and degenerative disease, although no clear link to football established
Years of heading balls and colliding with other players could be damaging footballers’ brains and putting players at risk of developing dementia, scientists have suggested.
The claim comes from the researchers behind a small study which examined the brains of six footballers who developed dementia after long careers in the sport.
Postmortems found that all six had Alzheimer’s disease, while four also showed evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) – a degenerative disease linked to repeated blows to the head. Both CTE and Alzheimer’s disease are linked to the build up of clumps of particular proteins in the brain – although the location of these proteins is crucial in diagnosing CTE, which can only be done after death.
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