Elite football players, with the exception of goalkeepers, do a higher risk of developing dementia than the general population, according to a Swedish study published this Friday.
A group of experts believes this study provides “convincing evidence” about the link between the world’s most popular sport and an increased risk of degenerative brain problems.
This relationship was identified with the death, in 2020, of Nobby Stiles, 1966 world champion for England – the team that beat Eusébio’s Portugal in the semi-final of the competition – who suffered from dementia, and with other recorded cases in other sports such as rugby, football and hockey.
Football players were 1.5 times more likely to develop diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia
This is the conclusion of a study published in the scientific journal The Lancet Public Health analyzed the medical records of more than 6,000 footballers in the Swedish top flight between 1924 and 2019.
After reviewing medical records, experts compared the number of people with degenerative brain problems to that of a sample of 56,000 Swedes. Football players were 1.5 times more likely to suffer from diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
Goalkeepers are an exception in this study, as they don’t head the ball as often as other players, especially forwards.
“This study supports the hypothesis that heading the ball may explain the association between football and brain disease,” lead author Peter Ueda told AFP. from the Karolinska Institutet.
This is the largest study on this issue since the one in Scotland in 2019 and which concluded that football players were 3.5 times more likely to have neurodegenerative problems.
Source: DN
