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Study finds CTE in 40% of athletes who died before 30


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20 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

Yeah. My boys will not be doing football. I'm pushing them towards baseball and soccer, but they can decide what they want to play. Except for football. Hard no on that.

Flag football has become really popular as alternative up to high school.  I do wonder if it makes HS football even more dangerous since more players have less proper technique when tackling. 

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47 minutes ago, unogueen said:

Pretty sure more people have died live during a hockey game than football.

 

To the best of my knowledge, in North America only one player has died as a direct result of on ice injuries, Bill Masterson, and it was in the 60s and from his head hitting the ice and it was before they wore helmets.

 

I believe a Russian player died like a decade ago from being hit by a puck... and there was another Russian player who died on the bench during a game, but he was blood doping and doing some weird shit.

 

Hockey is definitely more dangerous than many sports, but it's still not as bad as football.

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3 hours ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

Yeah. My boys will not be doing football. I'm pushing them towards baseball and soccer, but they can decide what they want to play. Except for football. Hard no on that.

 

I have one boy and my rule is no football. Soccer, basketball, baseball are fine. Hell, of he wants to become a ninja warrior, go for it. Hard no on football and hockey isn't that far behind. Not enough people talk about hockey, but every study I've seen puts it very close to football. I should also note that Soccer isn't in the clear either. Players aren't being concussed as routinely as they are in football and hockey, but there's plenty of research to suggest heading a ball and the trips you get in soccer aren't exactly good for you.

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While I'm certain CTE is an issue worthy of concern, obviously more so in full contact sports, but this seems like a good example of selection bias in the sample. It appears as though the brains were donated to scientific study because there were concerns that CTE may have contributed to the condition of the individual.

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15 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

While I'm certain CTE is an issue worthy of concern, obviously more so in full contact sports, but this seems like a good example of selection bias in the sample. It appears as though the brains were donated to scientific study because there were concerns that CTE may have contributed to the condition of the individual.

 

We'd need players across the entire spectrum, whether they died young or old, to all donate their brains. I don't know if we'd ever get that info.

 

The info that we do have still states there's a much larger chance of CTE in athletes from contact sports versus other people who died at similar ages. The percentages here still wouldn't look good even if we watered the numbers down by assuming no surviving players have CTE, and we all know there's 0% chance of that being the case.

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20 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

We'd need players across the entire spectrum, whether they died young or old, to all donate their brains. I don't know if we'd ever get that info.

 

The info that we do have still states there's a much larger chance of CTE in athletes from contact sports versus other people who died at similar ages. The percentages here still wouldn't look good even if we watered the numbers down by assuming no surviving players have CTE, and we all know there's 0% chance of that being the case.


My point here is that you are naturally going to inflate the rate of incidence in the sample when the sample is made up almost exclusively of brains donated because there was concern that CTE might have contributed to their condition leading to death.

 

As an example, if you looked at a sample of houses to find out what percentage have termite damage, but the sample is made up mostly of people who had concerns their house had termite damage…you’re going to find really large percentages of homes with termite damage.

 

There is plenty of evidence that contact sports lead to more concussions and other TBI, and there is a fairly solid evidence that repeated trauma increases the risk of CTE. However it is quite unlikely that CTE shows up in the brains of athletes to the alarming degree of this particular sample the study looked at. 

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54 minutes ago, sblfilms said:


My point here is that you are naturally going to inflate the rate of incidence in the sample when the sample is made up almost exclusively of brains donated because there was concern that CTE might have contributed to their condition leading to death.

 

As an example, if you looked at a sample of houses to find out what percentage have termite damage, but the sample is made up mostly of people who had concerns their house had termite damage…you’re going to find really large percentages of homes with termite damage.

 

There is plenty of evidence that contact sports lead to more concussions and other TBI, and there is a fairly solid evidence that repeated trauma increases the risk of CTE. However it is quite unlikely that CTE shows up in the brains of athletes to the alarming degree of this particular sample the study looked at. 

 

But that's my point. Even if you assume every not donated football athlete brain is CTE free, that would still be a troubling increase in CTE rates versus non-athletes. 40% is likely not the real number, but it seems it's going to be higher than the 3% for the general population and that includes a lot more than just those that die before 30.

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On 8/28/2023 at 4:03 PM, chakoo said:

I hope you guys are adding hockey to your banned list. It's can be just as bad as football.

No, it’s not. Not nearly the amount of sub-concussive hits, which is thought to be the major cause of CTE. That’s why its shown to be more prevalent in football and Pro Wrestling.

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