The message is, don't bang your head....
More than 8 years of play linked to Lewy bodies, parkinsonism.
People who played football, ice hockey, boxing, or other contact sports for more than 8 years were over six times more likely to develop neocortical Lewy body disease -- and in turn, symptoms of Parkinson's disease and dementia -- than people who played for 8 years or less, reported Thor Stein, MD, PhD, of the Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues in Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology.
"Other studies have shown that a single traumatic brain injury is associated with an increased risk of developing Parkinson's symptoms and Lewy body disease in the brain at pathology," said Stein. "Our study looks at this in the context of contact sports play, looking at many years of repetitive concussive and sub-concussive hits."
While Lewy bodies can affect a number of different brain areas, "we were specifically interested in looking at the cortex because we think that's where a lot of the injury occurs," he told MedPage Today.