Traumatic Brain Injury — A Controversial And Deadly Epidemic

By Bioradiations Staff

Linking Football to Degenerative Brain Disease and Mental Illness

Dr. Omalu knows firsthand how abusive football can be to the brain. In 2002, he discovered chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a football player. CTE is caused by repetitive insults to the brain, resulting in diffuse accumulation of amyloid plaques throughout the brain. These plaque deposits are also seen in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, many of the symptoms of CTE overlap with Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Omalu’s research sparked enormous controversy in the NFL. In 2006, the league’s traumatic brain injury (TBI) committee requested the retraction of Dr. Omalu’s paper, citing the research as “completely wrong” and “a failure.” Despite the pushback, Dr. Omalu continued researching CTE in football players and published another study in 2006, which showed CTE in the brain of Terry Long, a former NFL player who suffered from depression and committed suicide in 2005 (Omalu et al. 2006).

This second study was also presented to the league and was again met with suspicion and ultimately complete denial. The NFL’s TBI committee chair, Ira Casson, told the press: “In my opinion, the only scientifically valid evidence of CTE in athletes is in boxers and in some Steeplechase jockeys” (Ezell 2013). It wasn’t until 2009 that the NFL finally acknowledged a possible link between football and CTE.

The current methods of TBI diagnosis are inadequate, especially given how common and debilitating the impact of the disease can be. Researchers have been striving for a method of TBI detection that is portable, openly accessible, and requires little training and expertise to administer. Experts in the field recognize that serum-based biomarkers represent the holy grail of potential TBI detection and prognosis.