According to a Boston University study, the length of the career was also connected to a more serious form of the disease in ex-hockey players.
Each additional year of hockey increased the likelihood of developing CTE by 34 percent, he says Recent research from Boston University’s CTE Center.
– Hockey players who played longer careers had not only a higher probability of CTE, but also a more severe disease, researcher Jesse Mez comment on the results on the Boston University website.
CTE stands for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, which is suspected to be caused by blows to the head and is most commonly found in contact sports athletes.
The research results were published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The research material was 77 deceased former ice hockey players.
28 of those surveyed had played professionally. 27 of them were found to have CTE in their brains. 19 NHL professionals participated in the study. 18 of them were diagnosed with CTE.
22 of the investigated players were defined by the English term enforcer. This means a tough player, ready for fights.
Of the hard-faced players, 18 were found to have CTE, but the difference to the other players was not statistically significant when the duration of the playing career was taken into account.
“Fighters have been the focus of the CTE debate, but the results provide the most evidence that cumulative play is the biggest risk factor for CTE,” Mez said.
– Fighters were about twice as likely to get CTE, but the most important message is that non-fighters get CTE too. Hockey players skate fast, and Tackling leads to collisions with other players, the ice and the wings. The number of years played represents these collisions, the number of which is difficult to measure directly, but which are likely to lead to disease, Mez continued.
Former NHL hockey players who died relatively young by Rob Probert and by Derek Boogaard brains have been posthumously diagnosed with CTE, but most of the brains of deceased athletes donated to Boston University’s CTE Center have come from American football players.
In an interview with NPR, Mez admittedthat there is probably a bias in the selection of brains to be studied, because brains for research are most often donated by relatives who have noticed worrying changes in their deceased loved one.