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Although exercise and sports are beneficial for health and for preventing dementia, some contact and collision sports may increase cognitive decline and cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy and dementia. Repetitive head impacts seem to be associated with neuropathologic changes and biomarkers such as deposits of hyperphosphorylated tau protein and neurofibrillary tangles.
In this retrospective cohort study, researchers compared mortality from neurodegenerative disease in 7676 former soccer players with mortality in controls from the general population matched by sex, birth year, and extent of social deprivation.
Mortality from nonneurologic diseases was lower in soccer players than among controls.
Nevertheless, mortality from neurodegenerati…