Aaron Hernandez had severe CTE

Smashing your brain into your skull multiple times throughout your key developmental years is clearly not good for anyone. We're (slowly) learning this through example unfortunately.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair



Don't worry- the NFL doesn't know anything. And even if they did - these guys CHOOSE to play

^He looks to be having the time of his life.

They aren't forced to play, plenty other jobs out there. Most have college degrees. Every job has good and bad perks.

So.....he wasn't just a serial killer?
Nah, he WAS just a serial killer. No excuses.

Plenty of other jobs out there yes. Plenty of other jobs out there that pays millions a year for a couple months work? Don't think so.

Work until you're 55-60 or work until you're 35?

Pretty easy to see why they choose to play.

Putting aside the murders, the suicide clearly shows he had some "mental" issues..whether or not it was CTE who knows.

At this rate...Might as well start by suing the peewee league, grade school, high school, college, and lastly the NFL..such bullshit.

-MAVERICK- wrote:

Plenty of other jobs out there yes. Plenty of other jobs out there that pays millions a year for a couple months work? Don't think so.

Work until you're 55-60 or work until you're 35?

Pretty easy to see why they choose to play.

Yep, they make the decision.

mxb2 wrote:

They aren't forced to play, plenty other jobs out there. Most have college degrees. Every job has good and bad perks.

Most don't have college degrees, but are likely fairly close to getting them if they decided to. If they play for the full 4-5 years, anyway. Some have graduate coursework, but those guys are in the minority.

Unfortunately, when the guys without their degrees go back and try to finish them, they don't have the same support system of tutors, academic advisors (babysitters), etc. and they realize that the world no longer revolves around them because they aren't important to the athletic program to put butts in seats anymore.

A big part of me is glad that my kids weren't overly enthusiastic about football, and that part is growing. They do plenty of other things that can have bad results (snowboarding, skateboarding, etc.) but football is such a different animal with the constant beating that your gray matter takes.

All about chasing the money. Although, I highly doubt concussions played a factor in the man that he became.

They should go back to leather helmets – problem solved.

To help diagnose a heart attack they take blood samples and elevated levels of troponin indicate heart damage.

There are studies showing that there is a similar enzyme known as ckbb that works the same to indicate brain damage. The NFL and NCAA pay a lot of money to fund the research to make sure this does not become common practice. Imagine all the NFL players getting benched because they ended up with too much brain damage during a game.

This study concluded that although the elevated ckbb levels can not specifically diagnose a concussion, they can be a good indication of adverse long term affects. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6741637

Also the diagnosis of an actual concussion is very vague because it is mostly just based on symptoms that are reported by the patient.

smashingpumpkins167 wrote:

To help diagnose a heart attack they take blood samples and elevated levels of troponin indicate heart damage.

There are studies showing that there is a similar enzyme known as ckbb that works the same to indicate brain damage. The NFL and NCAA pay a lot of money to fund the research to make sure this does not become common practice. Imagine all the NFL players getting benched because they ended up with too much brain damage during a game.

This study concluded that although the elevated ckbb levels can not specifically diagnose a concussion, they can be a good indication of adverse long term affects. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6741637

Also the diagnosis of an actual concussion is very vague because it is mostly just based on symptoms that are reported by the patient.

In all fairness, cardiac specific troponin markers have huge numbers of randomized, blinded patients, with level's I and II evidence, within at least 10 years for relevance, not to mention in practice proof (and cardiac specific troponin markers are considered a gold standard diagnostic). A study of 10 (or even if it was 1000) people, from 1984, with no blinding or randomizing does not lend itself to even a pattern, or even a vague assumption. Nice to know? Maybe, but if it was relevant then there has been a lot of time that would have at least made it so. I think that the holy grail in concussion/CTE like damage diagnoses is being sought that resembles something like a troponin marker.

Dont take my response as a personal one. I simply think that data can be misleading sometimes without knowing some of the details of how it is acquired and how reliable it really is, especially important in medicine.

smashingpumpkins167 wrote:

To help diagnose a heart attack they take blood samples and elevated levels of troponin indicate heart damage.

There are studies showing that there is a similar enzyme known as ckbb that works the same to indicate brain damage. The NFL and NCAA pay a lot of money to fund the research to make sure this does not become common practice. Imagine all the NFL players getting benched because they ended up with too much brain damage during a game.

This study concluded that although the elevated ckbb levels can not specifically diagnose a concussion, they can be a good indication of adverse long term affects. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6741637

Also the diagnosis of an actual concussion is very vague because it is mostly just based on symptoms that are reported by the patient.

kzizok wrote:

In all fairness, cardiac specific troponin markers have huge numbers of randomized, blinded patients, with level's I and II evidence, within at least 10 years for relevance, not to mention in practice proof (and cardiac specific troponin markers are considered a gold standard diagnostic). A study of 10 (or even if it was 1000) people, from 1984, with no blinding or randomizing does not lend itself to even a pattern, or even a vague assumption. Nice to know? Maybe, but if it was relevant then there has been a lot of time that would have at least made it so. I think that the holy grail in concussion/CTE like damage diagnoses is being sought that resembles something like a troponin marker.

Dont take my response as a personal one. I simply think that data can be misleading sometimes without knowing some of the details of how it is acquired and how reliable it really is, especially important in medicine.

Yea I get that. It just seems so fishy that the NFL and NCAA are paying millions to fund the research and no progress is being made. I have heard that they are using it in other countries. Ill have to do some googling.

It's pretty interesting that they were able to already see a trend in 1984 but haven't made any public progress on the research since then.

akillerwombat wrote:

They should go back to leather helmets – problem solved.

no helmet at all, rugby players dont seem to have anywhere near the level of injury, because they learn to hit without their head,

scott_nz wrote:

no helmet at all, rugby players dont seem to have anywhere near the level of injury, because they learn to hit without their head,

Partially true, in this instance a helmet probably causes more harm than good. I have no idea of the rules of AF but doesn't the nature of the game play facilitate more hard hits. Some of the ones I've seen on the replay reels seem like car crashes, makes me cringe.

scott_nz wrote:

no helmet at all, rugby players dont seem to have anywhere near the level of injury, because they learn to hit without their head,

Exactly, I was living in Australia for a while right after college and it took one live footy game to realize that once you take away helmets they stop trying to knock each other out.

Currently no one even knows if CTE is something new or is related to Alzheimer's in some way. And it's still unknown the % of people who have "CTE" in the general population compared to sports people.

I say this not to discount anything. I'm fairly young and feel like I suffer from CTE due to my years in motocross.

akillerwombat wrote:

They should go back to leather helmets – problem solved.

scott_nz wrote:

no helmet at all, rugby players dont seem to have anywhere near the level of injury, because they learn to hit without their head,

Andy_Greenney wrote:

Partially true, in this instance a helmet probably causes more harm than good. I have no idea of the rules of AF but doesn't the nature of the game play facilitate more hard hits. Some of the ones I've seen on the replay reels seem like car crashes, makes me cringe.

your right in the fact that there is more contact between players in American Football than in rugby union and rugby league, watching it they tackle and block with their helmets, something you just cant do with out one on your head,

mxb2 wrote:

They aren't forced to play, plenty other jobs out there. Most have college degrees. Every job has good and bad perks.

APLMAN99 wrote:

Most don't have college degrees, but are likely fairly close to getting them if they decided to. If they play for the full 4-5 years, anyway. Some have graduate coursework, but those guys are in the minority.

Unfortunately, when the guys without their degrees go back and try to finish them, they don't have the same support system of tutors, academic advisors (babysitters), etc. and they realize that the world no longer revolves around them because they aren't important to the athletic program to put butts in seats anymore.

A big part of me is glad that my kids weren't overly enthusiastic about football, and that part is growing. They do plenty of other things that can have bad results (snowboarding, skateboarding, etc.) but football is such a different animal with the constant beating that your gray matter takes.

Lot of excuses.