Football May Take a Toll on the Brain, Even Without Concussions

Are you a negligent parent if you let your son play HS or college football?

My problem with this subject is the sexism. Even though the article focuses mostly on athletics in general, most of the commenters and previous articles focus on football. Many sports have this issue of possible brain damage, but complaining only about football seems an attack on men, since this is the sport most liked by men and there are no collegiate women’s football teams. One study found these rates of concussions per 1000 exposures: women’s ice hockey—0.91, women’s soccer---0.41, fall football---0.37, men’s soccer---0.28, women’s basketball---0.22, men’s basketball---0.16. (Hootman J and Agel J. Epidemiology of collegiate injuries for 15 sports: Summary and recommendations for injury prevention initiatives. J Athlete Train 42: 311-319, 2007) There is even evidence that heading a soccer ball can cause damage. So, please stop this sexist attack on men and football. Many sports are dangerous.

In football, helmets collide, but the brain keeps moving inside the skull, causing brain impact against the inside of the skull. In heading in soccer, the body anticipates the impact, and the head and brain move together, thus there is no collision of the brain against the inside of the skull. Some head gear should be devised that can measure head impacts during soccer, and do a similar study.

D1 college football teams provide more scholarships than any other men's sport. If non-revenue men's sports started to provide full scholarships in the proportions that football does, it would alter the incentive structure for parents thinking about that golden scholarship payoff down the line. You might see more parents push baseball over football, for example. But the only way that will happen is to provide more opportunities for women's sports, in order too maintain title IX parity.

Ok, what about Rugby?

It's all about the money all the time every time. And until coaches, owners and AD's from Pop Warner to the NFL are publicly proclaimed as brain killers and the lawsuits start to really hurt local school districts, the NCAA and NFL owners this absurd sport might then start its death spiral. I would hope science, education and parents might stop the cranial carnage, but I expect it'll still be about he money in the end.

If you ban high school football you put college football in jeopardy. If college then becomes the developmental league, professional football is put in jeopardy. Both levels are multi-billion dollar industries with strong lobbies and extremely wealthy benefactors. Then overlay the ridiculous macho American culture that glorifies violence and "toughness". It's going to be very hard to remedy the health dangers of football.

Who would have thought? The problem with this type of research is that it usually istied to some type of marker, like diagnosed concussion. This is the 21st century folks, time to be a bit more subtle.

Taxes should not fund high school and college football.

I loved football growing up in the 1960's. We played it informally starting in 3rd or 4th grade and formally starting in high school. I can recall clearly at least two concussions from those years. Years later, I discouraged my son from playing because the sport had gotten far more physical and the data surrounding brain injuries had become irrefutable. Lucky for me he preferred music and marching band. When I think of the money the NCAA is making off of unpaid amateur athletes and the risk they are taking it's really no different than gladiators in the colosseum.

It's long past time to ban football. It's a serious health hazard that is putting young men at needless risk. As a fanatic football fan, I've stopped watching all football for the past few years once it became clear that it was killing those who played. I hoped my Ivy league college would lead the way after it was revealed that one of their star players from their undefeated 1961 team and a former all-pro center died of CTE, but sadly there was no response. Football makes lots of money, creates alumni loyalty and giving, but at the cruel price of sacrificing the lives of the student-athletes who are literally giving their lives for ole alma mater.

Football is alot of fun for players and spectators alike. if played right with the right coaches, the work ethic and discipline developed last a life time not to mention the friendships. that said, i do think the game needs to morph into something less physical, more like flag football.

Get football out of high schools. Stop bribing young people with scholarships to destroy their brains for our entertainment.

With all the evidence, why do school districts allow football teams? What kind of parents allows their children to play? Football is especially dangerous when young children's teams are coached by macho coaches who abuse the kids under the guise of team building. It amazes me that fans are still willing to support their favorite teams while young men's brains are being damaged. Worse, they enjoy and encourage more violence. What will it take to ban football and boxing.

I played football from grammar school to Division 1 college football. These reports scare me.

Given the amazing advances in imaging technology, I'll bet that neuroscientists are going to see more correlations between physical insults to the brain and brain damage. Football is at or near the extreme end of the spectrum of physical harm from prolonged exposure to sports violence.

n=38 in terms of the research cohort of college football players in this study. That's a pretty high number for this author, which is another way of saying it's still low but not ridiculously low. None of that matters because there's already a solid basis of research on this topic. What's important is that there has already been many studies that have proved that football leads to brain damage regardless of concussions. Concussions are obviously highly injurious, but avoiding them is not a panacea. It is often the accumulation of hundreds or thousands of subconcussive impacts that leads to long-term damage. In other words, there is no way to play tackle football without putting the brain at risk. And don't listen to disingenuous shill Roger Goodell--we're talking about risk far beyond sitting on a couch (https://nyti.ms/2MhxHxG).

The beginning of the end of football as we know it. Time to change the sport (flag football) or watch it fall out of favor much like boxing has.

A study after healing time needs to be done. All sports are dangerous & further research may convince others.

I used to be envious of guys playing high-level football. Now, I pity them. (For the record--yes, sub-concussive hits are very damaging. But this info is not new, as this article seems to indicate. This has been understood for a long, long time.)

If the scans show "fraying" on the brains of college football players, I wonder what they would show on the brains of American politicians.

This aricle is OK, on a good subject. The Times article should mention that the phenomenon under study is known as CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), as the actual research paper clearly acknowledges. CTE has been big news about American football for a number of years already, and indeed it was first recognized in Pittsburgh in Mike Webster, who had been a star center for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Dear readers, check it out.

For every hour of NFL game, Eleven minutes to make our minds lame. Give us this Sunday our daily dread, One thousand, two thousand knocks to the head. Our Father who art in Heaven, Please save the skulls of our starting eleven. Bullfights, boxing and now football killing, Pray, put an end to its blood-letting and spilling.

I played football against the University of Rochester. They are a hard hitting group. But happy to say I have no long term brain issues. Vote Trump!...

As a parent of a son who is recovering from a concussion right now, I’m not surprised by these findings. My sons concussion didn’t occur from a big hit during a game, rather from a drill during practice. His coaches didn’t pull him out of practice either. He was the one who noticed his disorientation and vision changes. Football is not worth the risks.

school districts across the nation need to drop football. As more and more data comes out, it's unethical to promote a sport that causes literal brain damage in its players. And, if that's not enough, the insurance payments will go through the roof, so even if they don't "do the right thing" their pocketbook will compel them to do so.

My son's HS football team had only 34 players last year. Based on a recent email from his coach, the roster will be even smaller this season. I predict that within the next 10 years many Division III colleges will drop football. This may lead some school districts to follow suit. Because football was important in my youth, this is difficult to watch. But ultimately science, not nostalgia, should be our guide.

I predict that we'll get questions from our grandchildren about why we used to love watching a sport that caused such terrible and lifelong injuries on literal kids. People justify the injuries in the NFL by the millions they make. But 99% of people who suffer terrible football injuries never make a dime. I think football as we know it will be totally gone in 50 years or less. For the time being, I'm really glad my young kids are girls.

Thank you for this article on a very important and timely subject. Teens are returning to the football fields and too many parents - and school officials - are unaware of the damages that will happen to their children.

As a kid, I moved much faster on the hockey rink than I ever did on the gridiron. Similar contact-driven stops and starts. Thus, I'd expect the hockey situation to be worse than football. Anyone studying that? Or do we just hate football now because Tom Brady and the Patriots beat everyone else all the time?

It's time to have a serious discussion about high school football and discontinuing its use. High school football is big money to athletic departments and Friday nights are a solemn ritual in many towns across the country. That culture needs to change and public, private, and other non-traditional schools should exit the business of high school football.

As a veteran of a number of contact sports, among them collegiate lacrosse and thirteen years of city league rugby football after college, I have to counsel against overreacting to the so called roughness of these sports. Rugby is the ancestor of American football, which has evolved into much more of a combat sport than either of the aforementioned--neither of which allow any contact away from the ball. As to football, the addition of helmets and pads to the American game early in the last century, intensified the hitting. Blocking in particular and its importance to the game means that contact happens between nearly all the players on the field every play. Moreover because the action stops with every successful tackle, the flow of the game favors pre-planned play making and discourages the basketball like improvisation in rugby and lacrosse that keeps play continuous and running more or less a constant activity for all the players on the field. The net is that contact is better prepared for with fewer "blind" hits and multiple hits on an individual ball carrier or receiver. The speed and movement and continuous play of these games discourage the more devastating contact that football encourages. Leaving your feet and hurling your body at an opponent is against the rules of both albeit rough sports. This year I turned 71 and have my wits intact even if the training and the contact I did engage in have brought their share of osteoarthritis.

faulting any study that doesn't immediately solve the problem is missing the forest for the trees. most scientific research is produced gradually, with each successive study building on the ones that preceded it. there will be agreements and contradictions from one study to the next, however, the scientific method demands that we take the long view - something the negative comments fail to take into account. it is important to remember that consensus today might differ greatly from consensus in 10, 20, or 50 years.

Look, how clear exactly does it have to be that football kills everyone who plays it? It should, at the very least, be illegal for anyone under 21, just like drinking (which is much less dangerous). Adults can be stupid if they want to, same as with smoking, but kids should not be allowed to play football.

Let's ban this appalling "sport" and boxing.

The very description of this barbaric “sport” as “football” reveals the incredible degree of denial involved to consider, much less participate in, it. Save for the occasional punt, kickoff or field goal, ninety-plus-percent of the action entails brain contact rather than foot contact. And speaking of action, for every hour of “game,” after the huddles, walks to and from them, instant replays, time-outs, commercials and all of the other inactivity, only 11 minutes of actual “sport” remain, leaving 49 of anything and everything but so-called football. Not only is this no-brainer pursuit dangerous and built on denial but, in the end, and in every respect, it’s just not very, well, sporting.

Couldn't you guys have at least come up with a picture of the University of Rochester football team on whom the research was performed instead of Clemson?

I wonder if at some point the NYT will decide to cover football, college and pro, not in the Sports section, but exclusively in Business or, maybe, Health. After all, if you believe that Sports does not involve the inevitable destruction of all its participants, then American football really does not belong, does it?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120516152440.htm And then there is this too......if some of you think football and other sports can’t cause brain injury even w/o concussion.....

I know watching football for ten hours every Sunday (not to mention a college game or two on Saturday) has taken a toll on my brain.

I certainly lose at least 25 points in my IQ every time I'm subjected to watching football.

For those ignoring and downplaying the findings about football: just look into the career and death by suicide of the star NFL player Aaron Hernandez. He was a "good kid" who grew up in a good family in Connecticut. He went to the Univ. of Florida as a football player and later to the NFL. He was prosecuted and imprisoned for a stupid, pointless murder and committed suicide in prison at age 27. Studies of his brain after death showed that of a 60 year old's battered brain. see: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/sports/aaron-hernandez-cte-brain.html

Playing football is a choice that any competent, informed adult is free to make However, given what we know of the dangers, everyone under 18 should be prohibited from playing full-contact football. Football through high school should be flag football only. As well, given what we know about the relationship between football impacts and CTE, full-contact football should be banned in all public schools. Public tax monies should not be used to support an activity that we now know causes brain damage.

Thank you. The focus on concussions- in all collision sports- has always been a red herring. This issue is repeated subconcussive blows and their accompanying cumulative damage.

At one time boxing was a major college sport (Theodore Roosevelt boxed at Harvard and Gerald Ford helped pay for law school by coaching the Yale boxing team). Eventually rationale minds decided that it was foolish to have educational institutions participate in seeing the brains of their students scrambled and ended the sport. If the heads of colleges weren't so enamored of all that money football brings in and didn't put it above the health of their students, they'd ban football. Unfortunately, there's nothing really new in this. There were calls for end of intercollegiate football because of the injuries and death related to it at the beginning of the 20th century but money came first then as it does now. Probably people will still be talking about the same things in another 100 years.

As a neurosurgeon, I view allowing your children to play football as complete lunacy- somewhat analogous to buying your children cigarettes. but hey, it’s a free country...

What part of “football is dangerous” is too hard to understand? It seems to me that football consumers, as well as the industry, don’t care about research like this because football players are disproportionately young men of color.

When is person is running and is stopped suddenly (by a block or a tackle), the brain sloshes around in the skull, even if the head was not hit.

The very decision to play football reflects brain damage. Playing it only accelerates the problem.

One thing is to be rightly concerned with repeated head blows and long lasting damage. But this is absurd! These young people are athletes, the human body is designed for movement and action, and yes there will be some repercussions to the structure because of it, but the body adapts. I’d much rather have these healthy young people playing football than sitting 50 hours a week at a WeWork space in Brooklyn. There seems to be a movement out there itching to ban all sorts of athletic competition. What’s next, kayaking causes eventual brain trauma?

I agree that this study is poorly designed. But on the other hand, is it possible that getting hit in the head many times a week, for many years, might not be good for the brain??

An important distinction is that it is not the impact itself, but the rapid acceleration and deceleration of the head that leads to brain injury. A player whose helmet is lying on the ground and is struck by another players helmet, will sustain no significant injury, today's helmets are more than capable of protecting against the impact. A helmet does nothing to prevent the brain, floating inside the cranium, from rapidly striking the inside of the skull. The ability of the neck muscles to eccentrically absorb the applied force may be able to reduce the sudden acceleration.

I keep waiting for sports concussion-related studies to get more scientific and legitimate, and they keep turning out to be poorly-designed clickbait. Did it occur to anyone that these young men did other things beside play football that year? There is no way for a study this underpowered to decide what caused the "raggedness" of the midbrain tissue (assuming that the damage is actually pronounced enough to be a legitimate concern). The brain images were taken shortly after finals week, in the wake of long sleep-deprived nights of desperate cramming and caffeine dosing. And the average football player probably drank and partied pretty hard on a weekly basis over the course of the semester, inflicting on their brains a routine of sleep-deprivation and alcoholic inebriation. The study apparently didn't even monitor any non-football-playing students as controls, which is an appalling methodological failure. Concussion studies is a very young field, but we should be doing better than this by now.

If this study is verified by others, it could be the beginning of the end for parents letting their kids play football. But then, it seems that a whole host of sports involve the head without helmets like soccer, rugby, wrestling, and of course boxing. Helmet technology is advancing, but the fundamental problem is to stop the football, you have to tackle the player. We could return to flag football, but like gladiators in the arena, would anyone pay to watch?