Football Blood-Brain Barrier Damage Alleged

The information about brain-damage among football players grows more and more worrisome. Professor Alon Friedman, M.D., Ph.D., of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, has published findings in JAMA Neurology that suggest that up to 40% of football players may suffer from, as yet, unsuspected blood-brain barrier damage. This incidence took place among players who had not reported concussions.

According to a report in Medical News Today, Friedman and his team came to this disturbing conclusion through their work with a new brain imaging method called Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DCE-MRI). This method, they report, highlights brain regions with abnormal vasculature, indicating damage to the blood-brain barrier. The researchers believe that damage to the blood-brain barrier is a cause of brain degeneration and may be a factor in complications with the brain following head injuries.

Friedman’s 40% number came about as a result of testing he conducted on 16 players on Israel’s professional football team. He found that 40% of the players, though they did not report concussions, still had damage to their blood-brain barriers. This compared to only 8.3% of 13 track and field athletes who he also tested.

Writer Honor Whitman quotes Friedman as saying, “The group of 29 volunteers was clearly differentiated into an intact blood-barrier group and a pathological blood-barrier group. This showed a clear association between football and increased risk for blood-brain pathology that we could not see before. In addition, high blood-brain permeability was found in six players and in only one athlete in the control group.” Friedman also suggested that repeated mild concussions may affect some players more than others.