jstew
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Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 4, 2018 10:50:04 GMT -5
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Sept 4, 2018 13:18:36 GMT -5
I'll shoot the author. The referenced journal is not peer-reviewed, and neuropsychologists are psychologists, not medical doctors.
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jstew
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Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 4, 2018 14:28:40 GMT -5
Chris Nowinski, one of the leading "experts" on CTE, has PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience.
That being said, are you able to point me to a single piece of peer reviewed research that can contradict Dr. Randolph's claims?
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Sept 4, 2018 16:49:10 GMT -5
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jstew
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Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 4, 2018 19:00:44 GMT -5
What makes these peer reviewed? McKee, Cantu and Nowinski all work together. If there is no agreed upon criteria for the clinical diagnosis of CTE, then how can any meaningful research be done on the topic? Peer reviewed or not? The research you're citing even mentions this that there is no agreed upon criteria. The authors of the research you cite also note selection bias and lack of control group in their studies. "There are no agreed upon clinical criteria for diagnosis of CTE. At present, it is not known whether the emergence, course, or severity of clinical symptoms can be predicted by specific combinations of neuropathologies" www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5734127/
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Post by sader1970 on Sept 4, 2018 19:36:01 GMT -5
With all due respect, what is the point of this thread? Is a case trying to be made that there is no connection between head injuries in football and brain damage? If so, REALLY?!
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jstew
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Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 4, 2018 20:15:15 GMT -5
Sorry to interject. I just thought my fellow HC football fans might find some research contrary to the barrage of misleading reports to be of interest.
Yes, football is definitely dangerous but given that tens of millions of living people of all ages have played the game and do not suffer from brain damage I find this research to be of interest.
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Post by hc87 on Sept 4, 2018 21:10:13 GMT -5
I don't even pretend to play a doctor on TV, that being said...my gut tells me that the football/CTE connection has been somewhat amped up ovah the last decade or so.
Not saying it doesn't exist in entirety just that it isn't as bad/widespread (particularly at levels below college/pro football) as many make it out to be.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Sept 5, 2018 6:49:20 GMT -5
I jumped on Christopher Randolph and his commentary, because I have a past, albeit limited, familiarity with the incidence of CTE in military veterans. If I were to adopt Randolph's view that there is no such disease, then I could tell the President of the United States that the Federal government need not budget for any care and treatment of such. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255273/ [Bolding mine] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3739428/If the Federal government has to be pay for decades of care for even ten percent of the estimated 320,000 veterans with mild traumatic brain injury, that's billions of dollars in care. Unless, of course there is no such disease.
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jstew
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Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 5, 2018 7:10:24 GMT -5
Just because CTE cannot be defined does not mean that these veterans are not suffering from something. I haven't read anything about Randolph discussing TBI in military veterans, only football players, not to say it doesn't exist. An IED explosion seems to me like it would be far more traumatic that a tackle in football.
My issue is that we have people like Nowinski, Cantu, McKee, Stern scaring parents out of letting their kids play tackle football. This is impacting High School participation rates. The game is not for everyone but it changed my life for the better. The news exaggerate the long-term impact of playing football in my opinion. If something bad happens to you and you happened to have played football it's assumed it was caused by football.
This is a forum dedicated to people presumably interested in football so I thought recent research defending the game and providing evidence that it is not as detrimental as some might think would be refreshing.
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Post by rgs318 on Sept 5, 2018 7:33:27 GMT -5
Sorry to interject. I just thought my fellow HC football fans might find some research contrary to the barrage of misleading reports to be of interest. Yes, football is definitely dangerous but given that tens of millions of living people of all ages have played the game and do not suffer from brain damage I find this research to be of interest. A small disagreement. The fact that there are millions who have played the game and have no KNOWN brain damage does not by itself mean that there is no such damage. After all, much of the evidence of the damage only shows up in diagnosis/tests given many years after the playing time has ended.
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Post by sader1970 on Sept 5, 2018 10:28:49 GMT -5
Then you may be a little reassured that a couple of years ago, Holy Cross football team was reportedly one of the first in the nation to have new, state-of-the-art helmets that were specifically designed to reduce the chances of concussions/brain injuries.
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Post by joe on Sept 5, 2018 10:45:19 GMT -5
Problem I foresee is that because of the CTE dialogue, the parents of the little guys are not being allowed to play the game and learn proper technique early on, when it is completely safe and the game almost comical to watch. Someday these guys start producing testosterone and want to play football and, if they do, may find themselves behind some of their peers from a technical point of view, and in my opinion it becomes harder and more dangerous to start playing later on when the stakes are higher.
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Post by Chu Chu on Sept 5, 2018 11:12:21 GMT -5
I wish there was no CTE. Unfortunately, there are widely recognized and repeated changes in brain morphology and cellular structure seen at autopsy in people who have had repeated brain trauma that correlate with a wide variety of severe and serious symptoms. Yes, the clinical symptoms can be quite varied, and yes, there is a range in the degree of changes seen at autopsy, but this does exist, unfortunately.
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jstew
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Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 5, 2018 12:23:01 GMT -5
Chu Chu, thank you for your feedback. I deduce from your photo that you are in the medical field. I myself am not. Are you able to point out the shortcomings in the below research piece? I understand that it might not be peer reviewed (none of the BU CTE research that makes headlines has been peer reviewed to date). I'm not trying to be a devil's advocate but have a genuine intellectual curiosity regarding the topic, not to mention as a former player would have concern. academic.oup.com/acn/article-abstract/33/5/644/5087832?redirectedFrom=fulltext%C2%A0
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Post by wayback on Sept 5, 2018 14:42:24 GMT -5
As a physician I am very concerned by the series of postings by "j.stew". He references an article that is "contrary to the barrage of misleading reports". To me this sounds like a charge of fake news.
I would simply refer you all to an article in the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology: July 2009, Volume 68:709-735 titled: "Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Athletes: Progressive Tauopathy following Repetitive Head Injury". There are 109 references on the subject in the article. The authors are from Boston University Medical School and Harvard Medical School.
A quote from the article:
Pathologically, CTE is characterized by cerebral and medial temporal lobe atrophy, ventriculomegaly, enlarged cavum septum pellucidum, and extensive tau-immunoreactive pathology throughout the neocortex, medial temporal lobe, diencephalon, brainstem, and spinal cord. There is overwhelming evidence that the condition is the result of repeated sublethal brain trauma that often occurs well before the development of clinical manifestations.
It is not a misleading report, it is real science. In our present environment we must challenge those who want to undermine our commitment to the truth.
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jstew
Sophomore
Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 5, 2018 16:45:50 GMT -5
Thank you for your concern. I would argue that the study you referenced is not peer reviewed. From the BU researchers themselves..."Boston Univ wishes to stress the ascertainment bias associated with participation in a brain donation program, and the lack of a comparison group. These limitations preclude estimation of the risk of participation in football and the development of CTE." www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/2017/07/25/new-study-of-111-deceased-former-nfl-players-finds-99-percent-had-cte/"There are no agreed upon clinical criteria for diagnosis of CTE. At present, it is not known whether the emergence, course, or severity of clinical symptoms can be predicted by specific combinations of neuropathologies" www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5734127/ I would also challenge the notion that this phenomena is limited to former contact athletes and veterans, simply because these researchers are not even looking at brains in the general population of people with depression, memory loss, etc.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Sept 5, 2018 17:41:48 GMT -5
Jstew, Randolph's paper that you cited to start this thread is not "research", it is commentary, and the journal categorizes it as such. In 2014, Randolph wrote this: journals.lww.com/acsm-csmr/Fulltext/2014/01000/Is_Chronic_Traumatic_Encephalopathy_a_Real.10.aspx^^^^Though Randolph's article was published in 2014, he does not include a citation to this 2013 article (excerpted below) published in the very same journal. By not addressing the findings in the uncited article that indicates to me that the journal is either poorly edited, or not peer-reviewed. journals.lww.com/acsm-csmr/FullText/2013/01000/Chronic_Traumatic_Encephalopathy.10.aspxAnd in 2013, Randolph was lead author for this article, excerpted below. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23902607^^^^ To paraphrase, 'Consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind.' Randolph still identifies himself as associated with the Neurology department at Loyola Medical Center / Loyola Stritch Though I cannot find a listing for him in current directories of Loyola Stritch or Loyola Maywood. Loyola's reference to him is that he is an author of three published papers, in peer-reviewed journals. loyolamedicalcenter.academia.edu/ChristopherRandolph
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jstew
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Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 6, 2018 7:30:34 GMT -5
"National Football League players aged 30 to 49 years have developed some degree of cognitive impairment, dementia, emotional liability, and depression reported at about 1.9%, which is about a 20-time higher prevalence than the age-matched population in the general public (1)." **How is this determined? Is this self reported? Who is assessing these players? Are former players more likely than non-players to report any suspected issues because of prevalence of the topic in the public forum? Randolph does not point to CTE or head trauma as a cause for these issues so I don't see an apparent contradiction.**
"Overall, the data suggest that there may be an increased prevalence of late-life cognitive impairment in retired NFL players." **Is this simply a result of former NFL players having a longer life expectancy, as other studies have suggested?**
None of the CTE research to date, BU or otherwise, contemplate drug abuse, alcohol abuse, environmental factors, natural aging or family history in any of its studies. More research definitely needs to be done but at this point we don't know much about CTE.
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jstew
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Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 6, 2018 7:32:15 GMT -5
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Post by lou on Sept 6, 2018 8:07:41 GMT -5
Pretty sure most here knew football to be a dangerous sport even before there was an acronym describing how dangerous it really is in later life
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jstew
Sophomore
Posts: 28
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Post by jstew on Sept 6, 2018 10:08:09 GMT -5
I would agree, Lou.
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