Junior Seau dead at 43

[ridetheskies]

Also, when does America ban alcohol and anything that produces major forms of radiation? I've got plenty of studies to email you. All way deadlier than football and unnecessary for survival.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/cellphones

http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/OtherCarcinogens/MedicalTreatments/radiation-exposure-and-cancer

The first link is basically of summation of studies that have shown little or no evidence that cell phones (as with other sources of non-ionizing radiation) cause cancer. Am I missing something?

[Bucksfans1and2]

regarding the question of how does it impact all of our friends/people we know that have played football, consider neurologies developing understanding of cognitive reserve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_reserve) and the default mode network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network).

As absolutely simply as I can put it (and some accuracy will be lost), cognitive reserve is what protects us from Alzheimer's (AZ) (and to a lesser extent, parkinsons). If we all live long enough, we will all eventually have some degree of AZ. Now, what I find incredibly interesting is that for the past several decades clinicians have been baffled why smarter/affluent individuals seem to go from 0 to 60mph in their progression of AZ. Well, we now know that this rapid progression is related to one's cognitive reserve.

To wrap your head around this, consider it almost as like a skill tree in Skyrim or something and everyone has their own unique amount of Cognitive Reserve. Some have 100pts, others have 15. Any thing that impacts the brain (in essence, neural degeneration) chips away at that cognitive reserve. Here is where it gets interesting - signs of AZ or PD won't show up until all of one's cognitive reserve has been eaten away. Now, really consider that. If you have "15 pts" of cognitive reserve, not much of your brain has deteriorated and you will present with incredibly mild sx's, perhaps even non-noticeable and you will experience a slow progression of AD/PD. Conversely, if you have 100, once those 100 points are up, you will have experienced a vast amount of deterioration and will go from exhibiting/experiencing no sx's to having full blown AZ at what almost seems like the snap of the fingers.

Going back to concussions, concussions and any brain trauma really represents a neurotoxic event. Brain cells die, thereby releasing toxins which then kill more brain cells and leave the brain in an incredibly vulnerable state (my main concern - which is why everyone from peewee to college needs to be able to recognize concussions when they happen and have the decency to keep the player out of football for the weeks [months depending on age] it could take to return to a safe state). Although not conclusive, it certainly is thought that concussions are one of a variety of things which could eat away at one's cognitive reserve. Why don't we see the effects on everyone, think back to the example of someone with 100 cognitive reserve and 35...

Now, are concussions a big deal? Well, I ask how important is each point of that cognitive reserve to you? I myself played football from 8th grade (parents wouldn't let me play earlier) until senior year, and I had experienced 1 of my 3 concussions in life from playing tackle football (coincidently, 1 concussion was experienced playing playground football in which I made an over the shoulder catch that led me directly into the metal pole of a swing set when I was in 5th grade).

My main take away point is that neuronal degeneration is just a fact of life given we all live long lives. At present, to me at least it seems incredibly difficult to quantify how something might impact our brains, but just because we can't measure that doesn't mean it isn't important. Further, I would guess that concussions absolutely do have a significant effect on cognitive reserve in a way that eating 100 cheese burgers would NOT have on one's heart/functioning.

I believe it was human refutation that brought up that the decision to play football is made at an age when one doesn't understand the possible longterm ramifications, and I agree completely. Myself, I don't think I'll be encouraging my child to play football and will instead try to foster his/her interests in other areas. I suppose my biggest issue is that I do know an incredibly brilliant individual who experienced the 0-60 mph development of AZ in my professional life, and I don't doubt that he or his family members would have traded anything for another week/month of lucidity. That being said, I wouldn't ban football, but rather strict (season long suspensions) for anyone with improper tackling, and strict limits (e.g., career over at say 2-3 concussions) on how many concussions a child is allowed to play with throughout their k-18 career. Similarly, monitoring those concussions and forcing them to not play/practice for recovery time.

Also, grendon, c'mon man. post a safe email account or something and I'll send you the pdf of the highschool vs college article if you can't find it, but I am getting tired of repeating myself regarding science being correct vs what your intuition tells you. I can absolutely respect it the first few times, but if you keep insisting other wise without reading it, it comes off very, well, 'MERICA!!

(cheers to all as this has been interesting to read).

(also - headers in soccer have an insane concussion rate to them, and I absolutely would ban then in k-18 soccer, if not professional).

TL:DR - Cognitive reserve is what protects against the impact of normal, life long neuronal deterioration. Concussions quite likely chip away at one's cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve does not regenerate. This relationship (impact of concussions on cognitive reserve) is difficult if not impossible to quantify, but it is thought to be substantial. The question for some individuals could be, "would I rather have played football throughout my life or have had an extra 3 (6, 12, 18?) months of life without full blown AZ? The difficult part of that is everyone will have a different answer to that. As such, don't ban football, but be very litigious in monitoring/reacting to player concussions.

Great Post. I'd go so far as to say a must read.

The one thing that I think should be mentioned is that many football players in general don't exactly lead a healthy life in terms of brain health. THC (weed), various prescription painkillers, and large amounts of Alcohol also kill brain cells. A bad cycle can form where brain damage from concussions leads to depression. Depression leads to addiction to a painkiller, the painkiller kills brain cells, which leads to more depression, which leads to further abuse of the painkiller, and so on and so forth. You get a vicious cycle which can only end badly.

[RiotPunch]

Yup, great read M2H. Thanks.

[ridetheskies]

The one thing that I think should be mentioned is that many football players in general don't exactly lead a healthy life in terms of brain health. THC (weed), various prescription painkillers, and large amounts of Alcohol also kill brain cells. A bad cycle can form where brain damage from concussions leads to depression. Depression leads to addiction to a painkiller, the painkiller kills brain cells, which leads to more depression, which leads to further abuse of the painkiller, and so on and so forth. You get a vicious cycle which can only end badly.

For THC, scientific studies are conflicting but it has been demonstrated that marijuana can have anti-anxiety and antidepressant effects due to an increase in the proliferation of new brain cells. But there is also evidence that THC can encourage brain cells to, for lack of a better term, commit suicide. And here's a study showing that long-term cannabis users tested just as well cognitively as non-users after they abstained for a few weeks:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11576028

The way alcohol works isn't by killing brain cells but by impairing communication between dendrites which are the part of the brain cell that relays information. Severe alcoholism can lead to Korsakoff's syndrome but that has to do with a vitamin deficiency.

I'm guessing by prescription painkillers you're talking about opioids. I've never heard anything about their causing brain cell death. Opioid abuse can lead to dependency and withdrawals and since many of them contain high doses of acetaminophen (Tylenol) they can be hard on your liver. Here's a link that goes into detail of how they work:

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comm ... lers_work/

I'm not trying to be antagonistic; there's just a lot of misinformation out there about various drugs, how they work, and their effects.

[Bucksfans1and2]

The one thing that I think should be mentioned is that many football players in general don't exactly lead a healthy life in terms of brain health. THC (weed), various prescription painkillers, and large amounts of Alcohol also kill brain cells. A bad cycle can form where brain damage from concussions leads to depression. Depression leads to addiction to a painkiller, the painkiller kills brain cells, which leads to more depression, which leads to further abuse of the painkiller, and so on and so forth. You get a vicious cycle which can only end badly.

For THC, scientific studies are conflicting but it has been demonstrated that marijuana can have anti-anxiety and antidepressant effects due to an increase in the proliferation of new brain cells. But there is also evidence that THC can encourage brain cells to, for lack of a better term, commit suicide. And here's a study showing that long-term cannabis users tested just as well cognitively as non-users after they abstained for a few weeks:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11576028

The way alcohol works isn't by killing brain cells but by impairing communication between dendrites which are the part of the brain cell that relays information. Severe alcoholism can lead to Korsakoff's syndrome but that has to do with a vitamin deficiency.

I'm guessing by prescription painkillers you're talking about opioids. I've never heard anything about their causing brain cell death. Opioid abuse can lead to dependency and withdrawals and since many of them contain high doses of acetaminophen (Tylenol) they can be hard on your liver. Here's a link that goes into detail of how they work:

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comm ... lers_work/

I'm not trying to be antagonistic; there's just a lot of misinformation out there about various drugs, how they work, and their effects.

Withdrawl from Opiates is what causes the issues so far as I understand it. I don't have any deeper understanding than that.

It was at least my understanding that the connection between a lack of thiamine and alcohol abuse goes farther than "alcoholics have bad nutrition habits" Hence why alcoholics have Korsakoff's more often people with just regular bad nutrition. Could be wrong about that though.

As for THC, every single doctor I've talked to, has told me that marijuana causes long term memory problems. I may be a fool for believing it, but I do believe it.