An important new large study (Russell, JAMA, 2024) has found that footballers are 3 times more likely to develop dementia than non-footballers. In other words, it is highly likely that repeated heading the ball causes long-term brain injury (and dementia).
11,984 male former professional soccer players and 35,952 matched controls were compared; over a median 21 years of follow-up from study entry at age 30 years or older.
434 former soccer players (3.62%) and 453 matched population controls (1.26%) were identified with dementia.
And, the big AND. The rate of other dementia risk factors (e.g. smoking, alcohol, high blood pressure, diabetes etc) was similar or lower among former soccer players compared with matched controls (e.g. diabetes: 4.26% vs 6.35%). In other words, the playing of football (with regular heading of the ball) is likely to be the cause of the increased dementia risk.
The research was led by Glasgow University’s Professor Willie Stewart, who said,
Our data suggests this relationship between higher rates of neurodegenerative disease among former professional footballers is not driven by those wider general health and lifestyle factors, widely recognised as dementia risk factors.
In the past, we would say that we felt the strongest risk was probably to do with head injuries and head impacts in sport, but we couldn’t be certain that their relationship to alcohol. smoking, diabetes or blood pressure – these other risk factors might be involved.
Now, we actually know, having looked at the data, that these other risk factors don’t appear to be contributing to the dementia risk.”
A group of families – including relatives of the late 1966 World Cup winner Nobby Stiles – are taking legal action against football authorities over what they say are brain injuries caused by repeated impacts between head and ball.
None of this is surprising as there are clear relationships between recurrent sport-related head injury and dementia in other sports where is head contact, e.g. boxing and rugby union/league.
These are MyHSN’s views, and ideas on how to change the rules of football (and training) to reduce headers, head injuries and dementia later in life,
