BBC Global News Podcast (25 October 2024) - CTE in football players transcript excerpt:

"So in most cases, experts think it's all done in their late teens and early 20s. But they only start to see the problems, of course, decades later. And because CTE can actually only conclusively be diagnosed after death from opening up the brain, it's perceived currently as something that happens to older people.

But actually, the damage looks likely to have happened much earlier in life.

And so what evidence is there that heading a ball, that impact can cause brain injuries?

This is still an area that is being looked at. But experts tell us they're seeing CTE show up time and time again in the brains of those who've played contact sports. It's a huge problem in American football, for example.

And last week, I was looking at slides of brains with CTE. And the best way I can describe it is, it's a very distinctive form of pathology where certain proteins deposit in the brain as brown splotches, often clustered around small blood vessels, which sets it apart from what we see in other dementia. And in many cases, people will get a diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer's, but often the doctors don't explore whether they've played contact sports.

And they're reluctant to diagnose potential CTE while the patient is still alive. Here's the expert who examines former athletes' brains, Professor Willie Stewart.

We try to prove ourselves wrong. So we keep trying to find other reasons why this might happen. And despite our best efforts, all our attempts to try and find other reasons fail.

We keep coming back to it is something to do with the sport. It is repetitive head impact."

To hear the full podcast - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0k01hdw from 14:33 onwards.