So the one year I played football in high school I increased my risk of Alzheimers. In practice once I was playing in the defensive backfield and I was set to tackle the senior fullback coming at me. He ran me over, not even slowing down one bit. I was briefly out but of course kept playing.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=137572&CultureCode=en
A new study suggests that a history of concussion involving at least a
momentary loss of consciousness may be related to the buildup of
Alzheimer’s-associated plaques in the brain. The research is published
in the Dec. 26, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
“Interestingly, in people with a history of concussion, a difference
in the amount of brain plaques was found only in those with memory and
thinking problems, not in those who were cognitively normal,” says study
author Michelle Mielke, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic researcher.
For the study, people from Olmsted County in Minnesota were given
brain scans; these included 448 people without any signs of memory
problems and 141 people with memory and thinking problems called mild
cognitive impairment. Participants, who were all age 70 or older, were
also asked about whether they had ever experienced a brain injury that
involved any loss of consciousness or memory.
Of the 448 people without any thinking or memory problems, 17 percent
reported a brain injury and 18 percent of the 141 with memory and
thinking difficulties reported a concussion or head trauma. The study
found no difference in any brain scan measures among the people without
memory and thinking impairments, whether or not they had head trauma.
However, people with memory and thinking impairments and a history of
head trauma had levels of amyloid plaques an average of 18 percent
higher than those with no head trauma history.
“Our results add merit to the idea that concussion and Alzheimer’s
disease brain pathology may be related,” Dr. Mielke says. “However, the
fact that we did not find a relationship in those without memory and
thinking problems suggests that any association between head trauma and
amyloid is complex.”
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Alexander Family Alzheimer’s Disease
Research Professorship, GE Healthcare, the Elsie and Marvin Dekelboum
Family Foundation, the MN Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical
Genomics and the
Robert H. and Clarice Smith and Abigail van Buren Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program.
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