Shocking revalations from the donated brains of ex-football players.

[mo matik]

Football is proving to be extremely dangerous. More and more research is pointing out the dangers of constantly bashing your head. What a shocker. It turns out that it isn't so much the concussions, but rather the continuous little hits that could be causing serious injury in the long run.

There are a few articles on the subject, but the first case bringing it to the attention of the media was in 2002. So it's fairly recent in the medical world, explaining why there may not be as much attention on the subject as their should. The articles are long, but definitely worth reading, especially if you play football. Even more so if you are a linemen. I'll try and quote relevant excerpts.

http://www.newyorker.com/...gladwell?currentPage=all

The diagnosis:

The stained tissue of Alzheimer’s patients typically shows the two trademarks of the disease—distinctive patterns of the proteins beta-amyloid and tau. Beta-amyloid is thought to lay the groundwork for dementia. Tau marks the critical second stage of the disease: it’s the protein that steadily builds up in brain cells, shutting them down and ultimately killing them. An immunostain of an Alzheimer’s patient looks, under the microscope, as if the tissue had been hit with a shotgun blast: the red and brown marks, corresponding to amyloid and tau, dot the entire surface. But this patient’s brain was different. There was damage only to specific surface regions of his brain, and the stains for amyloid came back negative. “This was all tau,

 

[Senoj]

OMG what a startling revelation in the world of sports injuries.

 

[zk1mpls]

Damn, that article is too long to read on my iPhone.

Cliffs?
Football = bad?

 

[DCAllAfrican]

Listen to Bill Simmons' Podcast with Chris Nowtski. He spoke about it in depth. Great podcast right there.