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In Brief
- Kevin Turner, a former professional football player, suffered at least two concussions during his career and has been diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Some scientists believe that he has a distinct type of ALS caused by repeated concussions and that other players have suffered a similar fate.
- The findings, which stem from research connecting concussions to another brain disease, are controversial. Proponents compare their efforts to show a link between brain trauma and an ALS-like disease to the battle to prove a connection between smoking and lung cancer; others say that the science does not justify that analogy.
- There is widespread agreement, however, that repeated blows to the head, such as those sustained during a football player’s career, can result in brain damage.
Kevin Turner was a premier athlete in the National Football League, a fullback who could run, catch and block. At 6' 1" and roughly 230 pounds, he was slightly undersized for his position, but he had tremendous thrust in his legs and used all of it to launch himself into players who were bigger than he was. He played for the New England Patriots from 1992 to 1994, then joined the Philadelphia Eagles, with whom he stayed until his abrupt retirement in 1999. Some called him “the Collision Expert”—a nickname he got because of the gouges he collected on his helmet.
Now Turner can’t button his shirt. When we met recently at a California Pizza Kitchen in Birmingham, Ala., the first sign of physical impairment came when he put his small backpack into the booth where he would be sitting. His arm was Frankenstein-straight, and his shoulder was stiff as he swung the pack away from his body. Other issues soon became apparent. His fingers were curled up and his thumbs almost useless, so he drank from a glass by holding it in his palms. After he had trouble removing the little paper ring from his napkin, he took a furtive glance at the nearby tables before ducking his head down to rip it off with his teeth.
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9 Comments
Add CommentA very interesting article, but I am confused by the the following statistic. "She and her colleagues found that in about 13 percent of CTE cases studied, the deceased had also been diagnosed with ALS-a very high percentage. In the ordinary population, one in 400 adults is likely to come down with the disease." (p. 69)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne in 400 adults is likely to come down with ALS? That can't be right, so what disease is that one in 400 statistic related to?
Yes, roughly one in 400 adults likely to come down with ALS in their lifetimes. One scientist I spoke to broke that number down further. He told me that one in 350 males older than 18 will get ALS in their lifetimes, and one in 420 females. /JB
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPunch drunk boxers, football players addled by concussions, soccer players with blown knees, contact sports are such fun!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur society has become the Rome of today with our penchant for insane sports hero's worship. The insane money involved in sports from high schools with more expensive sports venues than educational facilities to the whacked out zillion million dollar pay scales for the hero's, nothing makes any kind of sense. Except the profits for the corporations involved---------
Over the year football has added more padding and "improved" helmets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat this has done is to provide a false sense of protection to the players, who hit harder now.
The average LIFESPAN of football players is very significantly less than the general population - they literally sacrifice years of their lives.
Either reform the rules and enforce a clean game - or just let them rip and, literally, kill each other.
If the players don't care (and they most certainly don't), who should care? As candide said, let them rip and kill each other. It's not like in Roman times where the entertainers were forced to entertain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs Lou Gehrig’s disease prevalent amongst the Muslim populations? The religious amongst these folk bang their forehead violently on concrete to prove they love their god. They do this about five times a day every single day of the year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy mother died from ALS just shy of her eightyth birthday.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA few other people I met also had family who contracted and died from ALS. One thing they all had in common was a love of gardening, and enjoyed planting and weeding. I have often wondered if their particular body chemistry is susceptable to a particular bacteria or virus in the soil?
richardebridges@aol.com.
What about boxing ?. Many people that enter boxing end with some kind of dementia. The helmets that are used in Olympic boxing should be mandatory for all steps in boxing, from training to amateur, to professional, no money can pay for a destroyed brain, the money everybody connected with the boxing business may earn can never justify such a miserable end.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImpacts cause bruising , a bruise contains spilled blood , spilled blood contains spilled iron.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne might dedeuce therefore ALS can be caused by impacts due to the fact the mouse model of brain iron excess is touted as an 'animal model of ALS'.
In short impacts deposit iron and manually deposited iron causes ALS.
"Superficial siderosis of the central nervous system: secondary progression despite successful surgical treatment, mimicking amyotrophic lateral sclerosis."
"Prevention of Motor Neuron Degeneration by Novel Iron Chelators in SOD1G93A Transgenic Mice of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis."
"These results provide evidence that iron is involved in the pathogenesis of ALS and iron chelation therapy may have the potential for the prevention and treatment of ALS."