{"id":136052,"date":"2025-07-02T12:07:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T16:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=136052"},"modified":"2025-07-02T12:07:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T16:07:05","slug":"playing-football-may-increase-the-risk-for-parkinsons-disease","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/medicine\/articles\/2025\/playing-football-may-increase-the-risk-for-parkinsons-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing Football May Increase the Risk for Parkinson&#8217;s Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin medicine-block-editorial-leadin has-media has-media-focus-center-middle\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container-lockup\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-leadin-media\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<img width=\"2000\" height=\"1335\" src=\"\/camed\/files\/2023\/08\/Tackle-Football-Parkinsons-Disease-feat-Brink.jpg\" class=\"\" alt=\"Photo: A person wearing a burgundy and yellow tackle football uniform and helmet is shown tackling a player in a white and red uniform and helmet tot he ground. The burgundy athlete has their head impacted to the ground as the white player falls on top of them.\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/files\/2023\/08\/Tackle-Football-Parkinsons-Disease-feat-Brink.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/files\/2023\/08\/Tackle-Football-Parkinsons-Disease-feat-Brink-636x425.jpg 636w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/files\/2023\/08\/Tackle-Football-Parkinsons-Disease-feat-Brink-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/files\/2023\/08\/Tackle-Football-Parkinsons-Disease-feat-Brink-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/files\/2023\/08\/Tackle-Football-Parkinsons-Disease-feat-Brink-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-outer\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-inner\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"wp-prepress-tag\">Research<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"head\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPlaying Football May Increase the Risk for Parkinson&#8217;s Disease\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar medicine-prepress-layout-metabar\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">July 2, 2025<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n<p>Identifying risk factors for Parkinson\u2019s disease (PD) is essential to early diagnosis. Dating back to the 1920s, Parkinson\u2019s disease and parkinsonism\u2014an umbrella term that refers to motor symptoms found in Parkinson\u2019s disease and other conditions\u2014have long been described in boxers. Repetitive head impacts from tackle football can also have long-term neurological consequences like chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), but research on the association between participation in tackle football and PD is limited. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the largest study to describe the association between football participation and the odds for having a reported diagnosis of PD, researchers from the BU CTE Center used a large online dataset of people concerned about having PD and found participants with a history of playing organized tackle football had 61% increased odds of having a reported Parkinsonism or PD diagnosis. In this study, published in JAMA Network Open, researchers evaluated 1,875 sport participants: 729 men who played football, predominantly at the amateur level, and 1,146 men who played other sports who served as the control group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNotably, we found a link between playing football and increased odds for having a parkinsonism or PD diagnosis even after accounting for known risk factors for PD,\u201d says corresponding author Michael L. Alosco, PhD, associate professor of neurology and codirector of clinical research at the BU CTE Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They also found that players who had longer careers and played at higher levels of competition experienced increased odds for having a reported diagnosis of Parkinsonism or PD. Football players who played at the college or professional level were at 2.93% increased odds for having a PD diagnosis compared with those who played only at the youth or high school level. Age of first exposure to football was not associated with odds for having a reported Parkinsonism or PD diagnosis. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Identifying risk factors for Parkinson\u2019s disease (PD) is essential to early diagnosis. Dating back to the 1920s, Parkinson\u2019s disease and parkinsonism\u2014an umbrella term that refers to motor symptoms found in Parkinson\u2019s disease and other conditions\u2014have long been described in boxers. Repetitive head impacts from tackle football can also have long-term neurological consequences like chronic traumatic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19603,"featured_media":115803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":"Research"},"tags":[94],"bu-publication":[366],"medicine-article-category":[],"medicine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[380],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/136052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/136052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136054,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/136052\/revisions\/136054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136052"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=136052"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-article-category?post=136052"},{"taxonomy":"medicine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/medicine-topic?post=136052"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=136052"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=136052"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=136052"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=136052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}