The NFL’s biggest health issue is much worse than doctors and researchers initially feared.
A study published on Tuesday by the British Medical Journal found that at least one in four NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had developed the brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
The research focused on the commonality of CTE in NFL players and found that of the 878 former football players that appeared in at least one NFL game and died in that six-year span, at least 25 percent had the disease.
CTE is a disease that can only be diagnosed after death, meaning research on the subject depends on brains donated by players or their families.
Researcher Dr Daniel Daneshvar warns that the estimate of 25 percent is on the ‘low end’ and found that the maximum possible prevalence of CTE in NFL players came in at 97 percent.
However, he believes the real number is ‘somewhere in the middle’ of those two figures.