College football players are not healthy, says study

College football players may appear healthy, but this is not the case. A significant number have abnormalities in coordination and inflammation, according to a new study.

December 16, 2021

Source:

Northwestern University

Summary:

Collegiate football athletes with a decade or more of experience with the sport have related abnormalities in inflammation, energy production and coordination that are apparent before the football season and across the season, a new study has found. The abnormalities are related to routine repetitive head impacts from tackling and blocking.

College football players may appear healthy and successful on the field, but a number of biological measures say otherwise.

A new study between Northwestern Medicine, Pennsylvania State University and other collaborating universities has found collegiate football athletes with a decade or more of experience with the sport have related abnormalities in inflammation, energy production and coordination that are apparent before the football season and across the season. The abnormalities are related to routine repetitive head impacts from tackling and blocking.

Most head trauma studies tend to focus on injury being severe enough to cause a clinical concussion, as opposed to assessing the routine effect of repeated tackles or blows to the head over a season. These findings argue that impact sport athletes, regardless of history of concussion, have chronic problems.

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These problems were found in measures that show abnormal regulation of inflammation, less coordinated movement and abnormalities in how cells produce energy. These three measures are significantly related to each other before the football season and to changes observed across the football season. They were also related to the number of head impacts a player received over the season.

"These findings support over a decade of reports about the negative effects of repetitive head impacts along with studies of animal brain injury," said co-senior author Dr. Hans Breiter, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "At this point, it appears the canary is dead in the coal mine."

"This problem affects much of youth and professional impact sports in the U.S., along with training of U.S. military personnel," said co-senior author Dr. Semyon Slobounov, professor of neurosurgery at Penn State College of Medicine.

A new study between Northwestern Medicine, Pennsylvania State University and other collaborating universities has found collegiate football athletes with a decade or more of experience with the sport have related abnormalities in inflammation, energy production and coordination that are apparent before the football season and across the season. The abnormalities are related to routine repetitive head impacts from tackling and blocking.

Most head trauma studies tend to focus on injury being severe enough to cause a clinical concussion, as opposed to assessing the routine effect of repeated tackles or blows to the head over a season. These findings argue that impact sport athletes, regardless of history of concussion, have chronic problems.

These problems were found in measures that show abnormal regulation of inflammation, less coordinated movement and abnormalities in how cells produce energy. These three measures are significantly related to each other before the football season and to changes observed across the football season. They were also related to the number of head impacts a player received over the season.

"These findings support over a decade of reports about the negative effects of repetitive head impacts along with studies of animal brain injury," said co-senior author Dr. Hans Breiter, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "At this point, it appears the canary is dead in the coal mine."

"This problem affects much of youth and professional impact sports in the U.S., along with training of U.S. military personnel," said co-senior author Dr. Semyon Slobounov, professor of neurosurgery at Penn State College of Medicine.

The brain, in simple, non-technical language. 

Learn more by clicking here.

Mothers: Would you let your son play football?

Excerpted from Healing the Brain: 
Concussions and CTE

Introduction

When You Watch Your Next Football Game...

Free Stock Photo

From high school to college to professional levels, football dominates American sports and exposes millions to head traumas on practically every play.

It is a paradox of wide proportions. From opening day in September to the Super Bowl in February, the National Football League (NFL) dominates American sports and wins television ratings far beyond any other program--sports or otherwise.

Increasingly, though, discussions of football (and other sports) include the medical terms concussion and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a long-term degenerative and incurable brain disease. Although military personnel and others are vulnerable to the disease, the highest risk is among athletes involved in contact sports in which hits to the head are considered “part of the game.”

Ten years ago, few would have predicted that the movie “Concussion” starring Will Smith would be made. Fewer would have predicted that brain injuries would one day dominate the sports headlines. When former NFL star Junior Seau committed suicide in May 2012, the media focused almost entirely on whether the thousands of head blows he endured during his 19-year career as a middle linebacker were a contributing factor.

More than 3,000 former NFL players sued the league for allegedly misleading them about the risks of brain injury. The players and the league settled for more than $1 billion in damages. New policies and studies aimed at protecting the brains of athletes seem to be announced every week. But it’s not just professional athletes who are the focus of attention. No fewer than 40 states have passed laws requiring athletes in schools and recreational programs to schedule a doctor’s appointment when a concussion is suspected.

A progressive, degenerative brain disease, CTE can present itself  in athletes and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma months, years, or even decades after injury. Memory loss, confusion, depression, aggression, impaired judgment or impulse control, and, eventually, progressive dementia may result.

...

Children at Risk

Most brain trauma in the industrialized world occurs in children playing sports. Since participation is voluntary, and the rules of recreational sports are malleable, it seems reasonable to make every effort to reform each individual sport, with the goal of reducing risk of concussions and CTE. As logical as that sounds, adoption of brain trauma limits and other protections for athletes has been remarkably slow. Based on what we know today, there are a number of steps we can take to lower the risk of concussion and CTE.

New rules in both these sports have since been designed to lessen brain trauma; but with every new horror story that emerges on the sports pages, parents worry even more. What sports should I allow my child to play? What power do I have to protect my child on the field? To evaluate the risk, simply compare how that sport is played at the youth versus adult level, and consider the safeguards professionals are provided. Football is a prime example since, amazingly, 6-year-olds play by essentially the same rules as professionals. Right now we have a healthy national discussion about whether the NFL is too dangerous for adults, yet we pay less attention to the risks of youth leagues, despite the fact that football is far more dangerous for kids.

We need to consider the way the human brain develops and recognize that children are at an anatomical disadvantage compared with NFL players. A child’s axons, which connect brain cells to one another, are not fully myelinated (in other words, insulated), and his or her brain cells are more sensitive to the neuron-damaging shock of concussions, making each impact and concussion potentially more damaging to the brain.

When asked about the future of the sport he loves and through which he supported his family, a recently retired coach from the University of Albany, NY, said “No doubt in ten years it will be a very different game, if it exists at all. And in this case parents have to make the decision to allow their child to play. To the great worry of the NFL, increasingly parents are saying no.”

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Table of Contents

Dedication…….....7

Introduction: When You Watch Your Next Football Game….…..8

1. Nurturing Strength and Confidence……..…12
2. Exploring the Brain in Words and Pictures…….....19
3. Use It or Lose It: Maintaining Brain Health……..….35
4. The Power of Emotions……...38
5. Wounds that Time Alone Won’t Heal: The Biology of Stress……….41
6. Substance Abuse: Saying No Is Very Hard to Do……...57
7. More than Just the Blues: Depression Is a Real Illness……….86
8. Teen Suicide: Death in Life’s Springtime……...108
9. Concussions and CTE: Healing a Broken Brain……..114
10. Minority Stress and LGBT/Q Health…………………..134
11. The Great Brain Books……..137

Appendix I: A Glossary of Key Brain Science Terms…...149

Appendix II: Maps of the Brain…...168

Appendix III: Learn More About It: Resources on the Brain…...173

National Drug & Alcohol IQ Challenge…………… ….187