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They Started Playing Football as Young as 6. They Died in Their Teens and Twenties With C.T.E.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/16/us/cte-youth-football.html

They started playing football as kids, began to suffer mentally and died before 30. Researchers found they had C.T.E., the brain disease linked to hits to the head. If their families could go back, would they still let them play?

They Started Playing Football as Young as 6. They Died in Their Teens and Twenties With C.T.E.

16 comments

jennwiththesea

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This is why we don't let our kids play any sport that involves getting your head whacked on a regular basis.

givesomefucks

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Rugby is a good alternative that's taking off lately.

It sounds and looks a lot more dangerous than football. But when you don't wrap people in a bunch of pads so they feel indestructible, they stop acting like they are.

Plus there's not the "every inch matters" mentality. It's better to go down in a controlled manner to retain ball position, and people do t get a 30 second break for every 10 seconds of play. So people aren't repeatedly going into contact at full speed, getting their bell ru g, and recovering just enough to do it again a minute later.

jennwiththesea

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Rugby is safer, but long term is still risky. Even soccer is associated with CTE.

Rugby: https://www.skysports.com/rugby-union/news/12321/12991287/chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy-cte-risk-among-rugby-players-increases-with-length-of-career

Soccer: https://apnews.com/article/soccer-heading-brain-injuries-db83f3b292ee255326b6efdf01d8f9e8

givesomefucks

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Cases with CTE averaged a career length of 21.5 years, while in those without CTE the average was 12.1 years.

Yeah, but with an average of 21 years...

Because there's not a whole lot of equipment, lots of people don't stop until they end up with a permanent injury. Even in America, I know a couple people that were still playing in their 50s. Hell, one tournament even had a 45 and up bracket.

Play any sport that long, you're gonna have some CTE.

You already said soccer, but baseball too

https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/baseball-brain-new-danger-concussion-crisis-2D11756194

Even straight up "no sport whatsoever" isn't safe

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20190623/Largest-study-finds-CTE-in-625-of-athletes-and-non-athletes.aspx

I couldn't find a study on it, but even running marathons may cause it. Lots of people start ragdolling their head when tired, and an hour of running is a lot of small bumps between your brain and your skull.

We look for it in high contact athletes, because that's where we expect it. That doesn't mean that's the only place it is. With no way to test before death, we're really only going to know after scientists go thru a ridiculous amount of random brains. And because of that it's going to take a long time to fully understand

andrewta

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Is your "n" key broken?

givesomefucks

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Nah, huge hands and tiny phone

Bluefalcon

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I played high school football and received a few concussions. One year I received 4 and only missed 4 plays. Now I'm almost 40 and my memory is getting worse. I know I have CTE and if I had boys that wanted to play, I would drive them straight to soccer tryouts.