Experts warn youth sports risk CTE despite NFL's own admissions

During NFL preseason, concerns about cumulative brain injury resurfaced as Chris Nowinski, who leads the Concussion and CTE Foundation, highlighted that CTE risk climbs with each extra season of play, with over half of athletes who logged twelve or more seasons diagnosed post-mortem. Researchers stress that CTE results from thousands of sub-concussive hits rather than a single blow, and the disease can progress even after impacts stop, resembling Alzheimer’s. Because diagnosis requires brain donation after death, data are biased toward families who observed severe outcomes, yet a 2023 JAMA Neurology analysis still identified CTE pathology in 63 of 152 young contact-sport athletes.

CDC figures reveal that 6- to 14-year-old tackle football players sustain about 15 times more head impacts than peers in flag football. Although hockey and soccer leagues have begun restricting body checks for youth, tackle football continues to teach children as young as five to tackle, with the National Federation of State High School Associations yet to acknowledge the link to CTE. The piece urges a halt to repeated head hits for pre-teens, emphasizing the irreversible nature of the disease and the need for diagnostic tools and treatments.