Brain In The News

See Dr. Amen's Video Blog on New NFL Study Linking Football and Memory Problems

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October 02, 2009

By Dr. Daniel G. Amen, MD      

All of those crushing helmet-to-helmet collisions in pro football appear to be damaging to the brain. According to a new study commissioned by the National Football League, former football players have Alzheimer's disease or other memory-related diseases at 19 times the rate of other men ages 30-49 and a over 5 fold if you are over 50. These findings represent the first time the NFL has publicly recognized a link between football and the many concussions players suffer and cognitive decline. Your brain is soft, about the consistency of soft butter, tofu or custard, and your skull is hard. Your skull has many sharp boney ridges. Some professional football players sustain up to 25,000 hits during their careers. I am currently conducting a very large brain imaging study on retired NFL players. So far, after 51 players, it is clear that playing professional football is NOT good for the brain. We are in the process of writing up our findings for a professional journal. The results of the current NFL study make perfect sense to me. The good news, many of these brains, if they are rehabbed early can improve. That is the most exciting news we have personally seen, and now that the NFL has its own evidence, the next step needs to be about rehabilitation. If we can work hard to rehabilitate retired NFL player brains, that also adds hope to the many thousands of soldiers who have sustained head injuries in war and the motor vehicle accident victims, etc. It is estimated that there are two million new head injuries in our country each year. Today, I filmed a video blog about this important NFL study and the work we are doing at the Amen Clinics on retired NFL players. You can view it by clicking on the link below: http://www.amenclinics.com/blog/1956/dr-amen-on-the-nfl-dementia-debate/ To your brain health, Daniel

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