Combat Sports Law

CTE is a disease of mileage. The more brain rattling you are exposed over the greater number of years the greater the risk.

This week researchers from Boston University published a study shedding perhaps the best light to date on this reality. In short they found that the collective force of the cumulative hits your brain is exposed to are linked with chances of developing the deadly brain disease.

The study, titled “Leveraging football accelerometer data to quantify associations between repetitive head impacts and chronic traumatic encephalopathy in males” was published this week in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

In short the authors found that the risk of CTE went up exponentially based on number of years playing football and based on the positions. In the crudest of terms the number of hits an athlete was exposed to mattered as did the force of the hits. Some positions take more hits at lighter force and some positions take fewer hits at greater force. The researchers found that by adding up the total of all the brain rattling force an athlete was exposed to was a good predicter of CTE. Concussions themselves did not matter much and were just “noise” according to the data. Its the mileage that mattered.

In a sentence the researchers concluded that “These findings implicate cumulative head impact intensity in CTE pathogenesis.”

A worthwhile write up on the study was also published here at the New York Times. A few graphs compiled by the authors paint a persuasive picture.

The first of which illustrates the strong link of CTE and increasingly severe CTE to cumulative force:

The second showing the exponential risk of playing more seasons at more brain rattling positions with a 6 year NFL veteran defensive lineman having 109 times the risk of CTE than someone who only played youth football:

Turning to a combat sports specific twist on the data the following chart is compelling:

If the average high school football head hit causes 27 g-force the average boxer’s punch to the head measures at nearly double this at 50 g-force.

If cumulative force matters each punch matters.

If you train in combat sports or if you train others in combat sports this data makes compelling case to make meaningful reductions to the intensity and frequency of brain rattling sparring.

A brain can only take so much mileage. Study after study paint the picture that reducing this mileage is crucial in reducing the risk.