Study links footballers to brain damage

According a research carried out by University College London and Cardiff University, Continual blows to the head may perhaps lead to dementia later in life.

This definitely means footballers may likely be exposed to this to long-term brain damage due to frequent blows to or sometimes kicks on the head.

The research said that constant heading of heavy balls may expose players at risk of developing this type brain diseases in later life.

According to BBC, in response to this research, the Football Association has promised to investigate this claim.

The research was conducted in alliance between University College London and Cardiff University, involving the examination of six footballers who had played for an average of 30 years.

In post-mortems it was learnt that all six football players developed dementia later in their lifetime, while four revealed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

"When we examined their brains at autopsy we saw the sorts of changes that are seen in ex-boxers, the changes that are often associated with repeated brain injury which are known as CTE,” Professor Huw Morris told the BBC.

"So really for the first time in a series of players we have shown that there is evidence that head injury has occurred earlier in their life which presumably has some impact on them developing dementia."

The study has been made available in the journal Acta Neuropathologica.