The Super Bowl Overshadowed A Disturbing New Study Of Youth Football

NFL fans have been occupied with deflated footballs, Marshawn Lynch quotables and Russell Wilson interceptions over the past couple of weeks. So it’s excusable if they overlooked a study published last week that suggested a link between youth football and the deteriorating minds of former NFL players.

Among the former pros examined in the study, those who played tackle football before the age of 12 were significantly more likely than those who did not to suffer from notable cognitive issues later in life.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine and published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Neurology, tested 42 former NFL players who had complained of “cognitive, behavioral, and mood symptoms” within the past six months. Half had started playing tackle football before age 12; half began at age 12 or older.

“One thing I really want to emphasize is that we really have great hope for youth sports,” Stamm told HuffPost. “We really think it’s important for kids to participate in youth sports.” But she added, “We just want these children to play these sports safely.”

The former NFL players in the study were between the ages of 40 and 69. All had played a minimum of two years in the NFL and 12 years of organized football. The survey was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Participants’ travel was paid for by JetBlue Airlines, the NFL and the NFL Players Association.

The Huffington Post