A sweeping new study has found that former NFL players are nearly four times more likely to die from neurodegenerative disease than the general American population.
The research is the largest retrospective cohort analysis of its kind ever conducted on professional football players and long-term brain health outcomes.
Scientists examined health and mortality records for 19,824 NFL players who competed between 1960 and 2019, comparing their causes of death against national mortality data.
The study was conducted by researchers from Mass General Brigham, Boston University, and the Concussion & CTE Foundation, with findings published in the journal eClinicalMedicine.
Former players were found to be 3.8 times more likely to die from dementia and 3.88 times more likely to die from Parkinson’s disease than comparable members of the general public.
Players also faced more than 4.5 times the expected mortality rate from ALS when compared with men of similar age, race, and calendar year in the broader U.S. population.
Those who died before the age of 60 showed the most alarming results, with more than 12 times the rate of neurodegenerative death compared to the general population.
Players with careers lasting five or more seasons faced significantly higher neurodegenerative mortality than those with shorter careers, suggesting a direct relationship between years of play and brain disease risk.
One surprising finding was that players in speed and receiving positions faced even greater neurological risk than offensive or defensive linemen, which researchers attributed to rapid accelerations and repeated high-force collisions.
Despite the devastating neurological findings, NFL players actually lived longer and healthier lives overall, with lower rates of death from cancer, cardiovascular disease, and suicide than the general population.
Co-senior author Daniel Daneshvar, a Harvard Medical School associate professor, stated plainly that the evidence is now undeniable at a population scale.
“This is the clearest population-level evidence we have ever had that NFL players are dying due to neurodegenerative disease at real and measurably higher rates,” Daneshvar said.
Researchers concluded that the findings reinforce the growing body of evidence linking repetitive head impacts during football to long-term neurodegenerative disease.
The study’s authors emphasized the urgent importance of reducing head impact exposure in the sport while advancing research aimed at preventing these devastating and irreversible conditions.
