A recent study indicates that a significant majority of National Football League (NFL) players who died between 2016 and 2021 may have had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head impacts. The research, published in the British Medical Journal, analyzed the brains of 235 former players who had donated their bodies for study.
Of the 235 donated brains, 215 were found to have CTE. Researchers calculated a conservative minimum prevalence of 24.5% for CTE among the 878 former players who died during the six-year period, with the maximum estimated prevalence reaching 97.7%. The study also found that dementia was common among the brains examined.
Lead author Daniel Daneshvar, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, stated that the rate of death from neurodegenerative disease among NFL players is approximately four times higher than in the general population. He added that these findings suggest a higher prevalence of CTE at death in NFL players than has been previously demonstrated in community-based studies.
Researchers have called on the NFL to implement preventative measures aimed at reducing repetitive head impacts across all levels of the sport. The study's findings add to a growing body of evidence linking American football to long-term neurological issues in its athletes.