Players 50% more likely to develop dementia, study finds

Published date18 March 2023
Publication titleIrish Times (Dublin, Ireland)
Footballers are 50 per cent more likely to develop dementia than the rest of the population, a study has found, fuelling calls to restrict rules around heading the ball in football

Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, published in the Lancet Public Health journal today, compared the health records of 6,000 elite footballers and more than 56,000 non-footballers between 1924 and 2019.

They found that among male footballers playing in the Swedish top division, nine per cent were diagnosed with neurodegenerative disease, compared with six per cent of the control sample.

The study examined differences in cognitive health for outfield players versus goalkeepers. Researchers discovered that outfield players had a 1.6 increased risk of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia than the wider population sample. But goalkeepers - who rarely head the ball - had no increased risk of Alzheimer's or dementia, "supporting the hypothesis that mild head impacts sustained when heading the ball could explain the increased risk in outfield players," the study concluded.

Peter Ueda, assistant professor at Karolinska Institutet and co-author of the study, said: "Importantly, our findings suggest that goalkeepers don't have the same increased risk of neurodegenerative disease as outfield players. Goalkeepers rarely head the ball, unlike outfield players, but are exposed to similar environments and lifestyles during their football careers and perhaps also after retirement."

Motor neurone disease

In contrast, the authors found no significant risk increase for football players of contracting motor neurone disease, while the risk of Parkinson's disease and overall mortality was lower among football players compared with the control group. The findings follow 2019 Scottish research which concluded that former professional footballers were 3.5 times more likely to develop dementia and other serious neurological diseases. And a study published last year found that professional footballers are more likely to have worse brain health after age 65 than non-footballers.

David Curtis, honorary professor, UCL Genetics Institute, said: "It seems extremely plausible that repeatedly heading the ball during training and normal play produces brain damage which over time can result in dementia.

Hypothesis

"The fact that the risk to goalkeepers, who...

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