Ex-WI LB Borland: 15 guys lined up for injections

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Steroids are just another form of food. Like eating steaks to build muscle mass.
 



I’m pretty busy, just google the study on NFL player longevity, cohort was around 3300 former players, mostly long retired IIRC. There was a higher risk of neurodegenerative disease in the group but overall death rate substantially lower.

Being that CTE seems to manifest in players with a long history of repeated head trauma perhaps there needs to be mandated retirements, ie 3 documented concussions and you’re out, or minimum and maximum ages limits. The maximum radiation model. Given the huge monetary incentives and the relatively low risk of disease usually many years later I’d guess most young men will take that gamble every time and sign a waiver, outside of a few privileged outliers like Borland.

The question at hand is whether CTE is common in former high school players and college players. The symptoms are vague and differentiation is difficult. The studies are sorely wanting on disease in former players although the one I’m aware of once again suggested longer longevity in former high school players.
 
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Here is the study examining mortality rates in NFL players.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Neurodegenerative causes of death among retired National Football League players

To analyze neurodegenerative causes of death, specifically Alzheimer disease (AD), Parkinson disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), among a cohort of professional football players.This was a cohort mortality study of 3,439 National Football ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 


For discussion's sake, let's just pretend that somehow we know that only 5% of football players are at risk to develop serious CTE from repeated, cumulative sub-concussive hits to the head. It's a low level thing, for some reason, in terms of overall population, but for those 5% the CTE they develop will be serious and will alter behaviors and/or result in moderate to sever depression.

What would be your point/argument, then?
 

Well, the number of clinical cases, ie symptomatic seems to be lower than that. And much, much lower in former high school and college players.

You are correct that there is an elevated, above zero risk of CTE, Alzheimer’s, ALS in former athletes. But, the raw numbers or probability appears quite low. As anyone with 5 dollars in a compounding account will tell you 8 percent of a low number isn’t much.

The risks of many activities are above zero. Wisdom teeth removal, elective surgeries, driving to the store.

I want to see actual risk numbers which nobody has a handle on.
 

I'm saying, for argument's sake, pick any number above zero that you want. 1% 0.5% 0.1%. Some non-zero number of football players are at risk to develop significant CTE neurodegeneration because of repeated sub-concussive hits.

What would be your argument, then? What would you say about that?
 

If one knows the risks of an activity and elects to go through with it anyway I don’t have an issue with that.

I do have an issue with misinformation leading to a possible destruction of opportunities for boys (and men) to form lifelong bonds with each other (which are very protective psychologically), build character, stay fit, and in some cases lead to academic and professional opportunities they would never obtain otherwise.

This is getting into the weeds but eg there are disagreements over the significance of beta amyloid plaque and tau lesions in Alzheimers. Most think they are destructive, another theory is they are protective and a result of inflammation. Drugs to inhibit plaques have been ineffective in halting Alzheimer’s. Point is, nobody knows for sure the root cause of the neuronal death in these diseases and pointing out a few stained lesions on a cadaver brain doesn’t prove that person’s suicide was linked to that rather than than common depression.
 



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