08-29-2016, 03:07 PM
Right. The issue I have is, I've seen CDC studies of NFL players* -- just observational, but reasonably large sample -- and they don't show decreased life expectancy or serious neurological issues, as a population. If CTE were that bad we'd expect it to show up, I would assume.
The big issue I have is that we don't, per se, know what CTE means in real people. For example, if you do autopsies in most dead people, my understanding is that you will generally find "cancer," in the sense of having cancerous cells. That doesn't mean everyone's dying of cancer; it just means that the connection between finding markers of problems at the cellular level and systems failures is often unclear. So while a lot of research needs to be done, I'm not sure it's worth coming to the grand conclusions that football is doomed, etc.
* (Can't find right at this moment so...)
The big issue I have is that we don't, per se, know what CTE means in real people. For example, if you do autopsies in most dead people, my understanding is that you will generally find "cancer," in the sense of having cancerous cells. That doesn't mean everyone's dying of cancer; it just means that the connection between finding markers of problems at the cellular level and systems failures is often unclear. So while a lot of research needs to be done, I'm not sure it's worth coming to the grand conclusions that football is doomed, etc.
* (Can't find right at this moment so...)