A new study from Mass General Brigham, Boston University, and the Concussion & CTE Foundation has concluded that NFL players have a higher risk of death due to neurodegenerative disease than the general population.
Nearly four times higher.
“This is the clearest population-level evidence we have ever had that NFL players are dying due to neurodegenerative disease at real and measurably higher rates,” said Dr. Daniel Daneshvar, the Chair of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School and director of the HealthSpan Lab. “This study demonstrates that, when looking at athletes who have played in an NFL game, including nearly 20,000 players, across every official cause of death, the result is the same: NFL players are dying of dementia and Parkinson’s disease three to four times more often than they should.”
The broad term “neurodegenerative disease” includes ALS, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia.
Length of NFL career, not surprisingly, was a factor. The study found that players with five or more seasons had “nearly double the risk” of neurodegenerative death in comparison to those who spent one-to-four years in the NFL.
“A fourfold increase in dementia rates from a presumed environmental cause is immense — and brain bank studies indicate that CTE is the primary explanation,” said Dr. Jesse Mez, Associate Director of the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and Co-Director of Clinical Research at the BU CTE Center. “To put that in perspective, heavy lead exposure, which was banned from paint and gasoline in the U.S. due to its neurological and cardiovascular consequences, leads to a 2-to-3 times greater rate of dementia and a 1.5 times greater rate of cardiovascular death.”
The good news is that NFL players generally live longer than non-NFL players. Per the study, “the same genetic, environmental, medical, and behavioral characteristics that enable individuals to become professional athletes — such as exceptional physical and cognitive performance, resilience, self-discipline, as well as lower rates of smoking and serious early illnesses and injuries — also contribute to longer overall survival.”
A previous study of 19,423 players who played at least one NFL game from 1960 through 2019 concluded that pro football players had a risk of developing ALS that was four times higher than the general population.
Again, NFL players routinely say they signed up for the risk of injury. They all need to be aware that, beyond the immediate injury risk, there are long-term risks to playing.
And many sports entail risks of head trauma, including hockey, soccer, boxing, and other combat sports.
Regardless of the sport, the vast majority who have the ability to play at the highest level would still choose to play. They should nevertheless be aware of the risks they are assuming when deciding whether to do so.
