The Brain and American Football
Over 1,036,842 high school students in the US play American football (“Estimated Probability”).Consequently, any potential effects of playing football impacts a meaningful segment of the population of America. As football players become increasingly diagnosed with football-related injuries, they are attracting increased media attention and priority for medical research.
Repetitive sub-concussive head hits occur often when playing America football and have been linked to neurological diseases.
The average high school football player sustains 652 hits to the head that exceed a 15 g-force per season (Broglio et al.).
To place this in context, the Apollo 16 team experienced a re-entery force of 7.19 g-force. These repeated head hits can lead to severe neurologic diseases. 202 brains of former football players of varying levels were analyzed and 177 were found to have Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), including 110 of 111 (99%) former NFL players (Meez et al.). However, CTE has even been found “in people who only played high school football and [who] passed away at a very young age” (Reinberg).
Every football player between the ages of 9-12 are exposed to 240 head impacts on average during a single play season (Stix).Researchers, like Reinberg, attribute this finding to physical changes of the brain that can occur as a result of playing football.
One harmful, physical change that has been observed in football players is white matter change. In a cross-sectional study, it is described that there is an increase of white matter abnormalities in former football players. The study explains that these abnormalities correlate with “cognitive deficits and depression” (Hart et al.).
This is corroborated in another study that found “an association between deficits in verbal memory and changes in white matter microstructure” over even just a single play season (Koerta et al.). The effects of these abnormalities extend into the long-term as dementia is usually present in people with CTE due to to the white matter changes caused by repeated head hits (Alosco et al.). This finding connects the negative consequences of this abnormality, that additionally, would likely affect one’s life in the long-term, including their employability outside of football.
With rising concerns regarding the compelling negative health effects of playing football, in addition to a lack of public recognition and action from the NFL, more specific actions are needed to protect players. The current predominant protective gear for football players—helmets—is not designed to prevent or lessen the severity of a concussion (Meehan et al.). Players could be taught the latest information on the warning signs and injuries of playing football. The referees could be trained more extensively to prohibit players from returning to the football field after an injury, as this would prevent second impact syndrome. The NFL could also impose an increase in restrictions for tackling to limit the head-to-head contact. With a myriad of potential solutions already identified, action is needed to enact effective measures to protect the health of the players.
Works Cited
Alosco, Michael L et al. “Association of White Matter Rarefaction, Arteriolosclerosis, and Tau With Dementia in Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. The Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Neurology, 05 Aug. 2019.
Broglio, Steven P et al. “Cumulative head impact burden in high school football.” Journal of Neurotrauma Vol. 28,10 (2011): 2069-78. doi:10.1089/neu.2011.1825.
“Estimated Probability of Competing in College Athletics.” NCAA, NCAA Research, 3 Apr. 2019.
Hart John Jr et al. “Neuroimaging of cognitive dysfunction and depression in aging retired National Football League players: a cross- sectional study.” The Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Neurology, 7 Jan. 2013.
Koerte, Inga K et al. “A review of neuroimaging findings in repetitive brain trauma.” Brain pathology (Zurich, Switzerland) vol. 25,3 (2015): 318-49.
Meehan, William P et al. “Tackling in Youth Football.” Pediatrics November 2015, Vol. 136, No. 5, Academy of Pediatrics, 1 Nov 2015.
Meez, Jesse et al. “Clinicopathological Evaluation of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Players of American Football.” The Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Network, 25 July 2017.
Reinberg, Steven. “Brain Condition CTE Seen in H.S. Football Players: Study.” Health Day, 21 Feb. 2019.
Stix, Gary. “240 Head Hits: The Average a 10-Year Old Can Get in a Football Season.” Scientific American, 30 Jan. 2015. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/talking-back/240-head-hits-the-average-a-10-year-old-can-sustain-in-a-football-season/