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What's the Deal with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
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  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
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  Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Cherry. So this
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  Speaker 1: is stuff you should know breaking news from two thousand
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  Speaker 1: fifteen editions. No, this is still very relevant to sure it.
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  Speaker 1: It definitely is. But I mean, like at the end
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  Speaker 1: of last year the beginning of this year, it's certainly
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  Speaker 1: made the rounds a little more. While with the um
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  Speaker 1: movie Concussion, which is apparently like roundly criticized by everyone
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  Speaker 1: involved in the study of CTE, I didn't see it
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  Speaker 1: just because you know, it didn't look that good at
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  Speaker 1: me as a movie. Well, apparently I really like did
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  Speaker 1: a lot of oversimplification. It came to a lot of
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  Speaker 1: conclusions about the science that haven't been reached yet and
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  Speaker 1: may never be reached. That it was just kind of like, um.
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  Speaker 1: But there are some really good documentaries out there, and
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  Speaker 1: I want to tout one just right off the bat.
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  Speaker 1: There's a two hour front line on this, a League
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  Speaker 1: of Denial. Did you see it? Uh? No, Man, it
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  Speaker 1: is good. I'm not quite sure when it's from, maybe
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  Speaker 1: too sometime between two thousand and twelve and two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and fourteen or fifteen, but it was based on this
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  Speaker 1: book by the Fana brothers who wrote League of Denial,
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  Speaker 1: the book UM, and it was just about their investigation
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  Speaker 1: into what the NFL knew or didn't know about concussions
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  Speaker 1: possibly leading to this this condition CTE. We can just
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  Speaker 1: call it CT right well, practicing you say it once,
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  Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to screw it, and then we'll just
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  Speaker 1: say CT after that. Okay, the condition is called chronic
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  Speaker 1: traumatic encephalopathy. Yeah, great, ta yeah CT Jumping on that
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  Speaker 1: grenade for the team. Yeah, we've known about it for
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  Speaker 1: a while. It's gone by other names farther back in
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  Speaker 1: in the medical literature. Sure, and we did our own
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  Speaker 1: uh in two thousand nine. Long time ago, we did
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  Speaker 1: one on concussions called do concussions called early Death? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: remember that one, Um, And I don't even think we
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  Speaker 1: I don't even know ct was on a radar at
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  Speaker 1: the time. I don't know if maybe we might have
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  Speaker 1: mentioned it. It started to really seep out into the
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  Speaker 1: news around two thousand nine, so we probably mentioned it,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't think we understood it or recognized it
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  Speaker 1: like we do now, meaning like you and me. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: just two yokels behind the mica. Uh so you didn't
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  Speaker 1: mention the other names. Um. Back in the day, In fact,
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  Speaker 1: we can go all the way back, shockingly to there
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  Speaker 1: was a dude named Dr Harrison T. Martland and uh
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  Speaker 1: he published an article in the Journal of American Medical
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  Speaker 1: Journal of the American Medical Association, and he you know,
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  Speaker 1: you've heard the term punch drunk in relation to boxers
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  Speaker 1: like outside the ring, Like you know, he as as
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  Speaker 1: big Ray, he's a little punch drunk. He was a boxer.
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  Speaker 1: What are he was talking about, although he didn't know
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  Speaker 1: it at the time, was CTE. Which is it? It's
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  Speaker 1: really remarkable. It resembles if you had no idea and
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  Speaker 1: you were just a doctor looking at at a brain
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  Speaker 1: post more to my guess, let's really know. The way
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  Speaker 1: to say it is in order to unfortunately, right now,
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  Speaker 1: in order to study CT, you have to look at
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  Speaker 1: a brain under a microscope, right, which is the only
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  Speaker 1: I can't really do while the person is alive. So
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  Speaker 1: if you didn't know any better, you would see a
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  Speaker 1: brain and say, well, this person has a had had
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  Speaker 1: a degenerative illness in the brain, neurological illness, and I
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  Speaker 1: would say Parkinson's and dementia. It's all here. But the
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  Speaker 1: striking thing is is it's not an illness. It is
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  Speaker 1: literally from repeated blows to the head. Yeah, it's not
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  Speaker 1: a disease causing or it's not caused by disease, right. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's a like a traumatic brain injury repeated. But some
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  Speaker 1: people put themselves into a situation over and over again
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  Speaker 1: where they're going to be exposed to the possibility of
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  Speaker 1: traumatic brain injury, right, and chief among them as boxers.
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  Speaker 1: And this doctor Martlin was basically describing this in the
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  Speaker 1: medical literature from what I understand, just the symptoms, right.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think he was king at brains, was he? No?
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  Speaker 1: I don't think he was or trying to identify. I
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  Speaker 1: mean he called it punch drunk syndrome, but dementia pugilistic. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's uh, what he was looking at was CT, and
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  Speaker 1: we now we now know that, we know we know
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  Speaker 1: that now. But again he was just kind of describing
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  Speaker 1: the symptoms. It wasn't until I think the science got
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  Speaker 1: a little further that they really started to look at
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  Speaker 1: brains and we understood the boxers were at risk for
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  Speaker 1: what we understand now is CT. Yeah, they reached middle age,
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  Speaker 1: they would be like a little more confused, maybe get
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  Speaker 1: dizzy when they're walking around, be unsteady, maybe just slower
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  Speaker 1: generally moving around, and they like, yeah, I got punched drunk.
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  Speaker 1: Just basically just think of Rocky from Rocky four on
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  Speaker 1: m I get them confused after Rocky three. So Rocky
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  Speaker 1: three was Mr T. It was Rocky to Mr T.
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  Speaker 1: Rocky three, Rockie two was the rematch with Apollo, Okay, well,
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  Speaker 1: then Rocky four was with Ivan Drago and Bridgete Nielsen.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't even really all the way through. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think what you didn't know? That's like lesser Rocky to me.
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  Speaker 1: Uh well that was that was when I was running
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  Speaker 1: around in the woods like shooting Rooskis with my fake
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  Speaker 1: m c M sixteen as like as seven eight year old,
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  Speaker 1: So this would have been like right there for me. Well,
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  Speaker 1: and it was big time. I saw in the theater.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure, like I saw it right when it came
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  Speaker 1: out on video. I'm sure. I talked to my parents
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  Speaker 1: and he getting show time so I could see it.
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  Speaker 1: He had burn Comie burn T shirts on. And then
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  Speaker 1: the iron curtain fell and I was like, wait a minute,
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  Speaker 1: none of the stuff that we were told holds up. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: people just trying to get by over there exactly just
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  Speaker 1: like us. So where were we, Well, this is where
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  Speaker 1: we were talking. I think it's really important to say that, yes,
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  Speaker 1: people knew there was such a thing as CTE. They
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  Speaker 1: called it punch drunk syndrome for a very long time.
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  Speaker 1: But everybody said, boxers know that this is going on
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  Speaker 1: there and millions exactly, they're getting paid millions of dollars
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  Speaker 1: to do this, They're doing it on their own accord.
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  Speaker 1: And this is such a small tranche of the population
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  Speaker 1: of the world. Really who cares and it we should
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  Speaker 1: definitely say the medical establishment, especially in the United States,
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  Speaker 1: that we care. We have been calling on the Boxing
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  Speaker 1: Association and the government to ban boxing since the fifties, right,
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  Speaker 1: But for the most part, America said, well, we love
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  Speaker 1: a good fight, so we're not gonna go along with that.
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  Speaker 1: You guys keep boxing, And that was the way it
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  Speaker 1: went until two thousand two. And ladies are boxing now, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: they are bringing ct just like many. Uh yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: mean that's not super new. But um, I think female
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  Speaker 1: boxing has grown a lot. I think especially since Muhammad
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  Speaker 1: Ali's daughter got into it. Oh yeah, she definitely brought
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  Speaker 1: a lot of attent tremendously. Do you remember when the
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  Speaker 1: Boxing Association tried to make female boxers wear skirts when
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  Speaker 1: they boxed? Did they really? Interesting? The whole thing was
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  Speaker 1: just like an onion set up, but it was real life,
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  Speaker 1: and it was first of all, making any women in
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  Speaker 1: any profession wear a skirt these days, it's kind of
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  Speaker 1: untoward if you ask me. But secondly, choose the one
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  Speaker 1: profession where you shouldn't attempt to tell a woman to
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  Speaker 1: wear anything, let alone a skirt she doesn't want to.
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  Speaker 1: Female boxing is the first one that comes to mind.
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  Speaker 1: It's very interesting. Is a female boxing or women's boxing?
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  Speaker 1: Probably both? All right? Okay, alright, So uh, two thousand two.
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  Speaker 1: Let's flash forward a little bit, uh into the more
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  Speaker 1: modern era. That was a neuropathologist still is name Bennett
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  Speaker 1: um Malu. Who That's who Will Smith played, right, Wasn't
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  Speaker 1: that about him? Right? Okay, I guess I should see that.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not a big Will Smith fan. You should just
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  Speaker 1: watch a fan of bad biopics. Watch The League of Denial.
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  Speaker 1: There's he's interviewed extensively in it. Yeah, he's better. He
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  Speaker 1: does a better Omalu than does So there was a
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  Speaker 1: there was a man center for the Pittsburgh Steelers Hall
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  Speaker 1: of Famer Mike Webster died of a heart attack at
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  Speaker 1: age fifty, and he wound up uh in the care
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  Speaker 1: of Amaliu for his autopsy, and he started looking around
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  Speaker 1: the brain and said, there's something going on here that's
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  Speaker 1: really weird. Uh. If you remember when we did um
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  Speaker 1: well the concussions, then then what was the other one
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  Speaker 1: that Alzheimer's recently where we talked about, okay, dementia, where
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  Speaker 1: we talked about beta am Lloyd proteins. Yeah, so they
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  Speaker 1: build up as like a plaque, right, Yeah, they build
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  Speaker 1: up like a plaque and then these towel proteins come
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  Speaker 1: along after and really do a lot of damage. He
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  Speaker 1: noticed that Webster had a lot of these towel proteins,
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  Speaker 1: but not the former beta amloid proteins, which is really weird.
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  Speaker 1: It was weird in that he when he opened up
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  Speaker 1: Mike Webster's um skull and started poking around his brain
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  Speaker 1: like Mike Webster had been showing all of the classic
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  Speaker 1: symptoms of Alzheimer's in dementia for many, many years now,
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  Speaker 1: long before he died of a heart attack at age fifty,
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  Speaker 1: which is pretty young. So Amalu was like, surely I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to find these beta amaloids, and he didn't, so
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  Speaker 1: that the the lack of beta amloids made him dig
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  Speaker 1: a little deeper and really start looking at Mike Webster's brain,
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  Speaker 1: and that's when he found the tow proteins. And he's like,
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  Speaker 1: what are these doing here? Especially by themselves? Well, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and that's like I said earlier, he everyone thought he
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  Speaker 1: had Alzheimer's in dementia, but he just had dementia, which
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  Speaker 1: is not the way it's supposed to work. So it
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  Speaker 1: was a startling find, to say the least. And this
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  Speaker 1: was I believe the first NFL player a former player
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  Speaker 1: that is that had this disease and was diagnosed with it. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: morm Malo, who is I think like the forensic pathologist
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  Speaker 1: with Pittsburgh Um diagnosed him with chronic traumatic and cephalic
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  Speaker 1: and cephalopathy the like you said, the first football player
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  Speaker 1: ever to have this, this diagnosis. Up to this point,
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  Speaker 1: it had been boxers. Had he been a boxer, it
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  Speaker 1: would have made zero news whatsoever. But the fact that
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  Speaker 1: he was a football player, this is kind of weird.
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  Speaker 1: And well, we'll talk about why this was so strange
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  Speaker 1: and weird right after this, So, Chuck, we were saying
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  Speaker 1: that Bennett omalu Um diagnosed Mike Webster with CTE and
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  Speaker 1: when he did, it made huge waves. And the reason
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  Speaker 1: why it was because Mike Webster was the first NFL
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  Speaker 1: player to be diagnosed with this. But for a very
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  Speaker 1: long time, for the pretty much the last decade, the
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  Speaker 1: NFL had been fighting off this idea that concussions were
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  Speaker 1: worse than just having like your bell wrong or whatever
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  Speaker 1: cute thing you want to call, coming close to losing
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  Speaker 1: consciousness because the acceleration of your brain smacking against the
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  Speaker 1: inside of your skull has cognitively disabled you temporarily. That's right. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: The NFL, Oh boy, this is we're getting into it now.
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  Speaker 1: They have they have a long checkered history with trying
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  Speaker 1: to protect players from injury and trying to protect their
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  Speaker 1: own interests as either a a massive revenue generating UH
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  Speaker 1: core operation and UH one that wants to keep its
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  Speaker 1: players safe, but also not beyond that money well and
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  Speaker 1: not beyond the hook for their injuries. Like oh yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you're playing the NFL. You know what you're getting into.
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  Speaker 1: There's chances are And this was long. I mean everyone
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  Speaker 1: always knew like, yeah, when you get old, you're you're
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  Speaker 1: not able to walk that well, you're gonna have creaky
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  Speaker 1: knees and a bad back and all the stuff that
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  Speaker 1: comes along with getting you know, hammered on the field
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  Speaker 1: each and every week. But they always did try to
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  Speaker 1: sort of downplay this concussion. And it's only in recent
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  Speaker 1: years that they've really made official a protocol for dealing
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  Speaker 1: with concussions. Yes, it was always like, I want to
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  Speaker 1: get back in the game, coach, and they're like, how
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  Speaker 1: do you feel. You know where you are? Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm good, all right, get back in there, right right, um.
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  Speaker 1: And it was a direct result of this initial diagnosis
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  Speaker 1: from two two of CTE but by Bennett Omaliu of
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  Speaker 1: Mike Webster right that all of this change we're seeing
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  Speaker 1: over the last couple of seasons, which apparently having like
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  Speaker 1: like great effects already as it comes from this moment
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  Speaker 1: in time. Right and part and parcel of that diagnosis
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  Speaker 1: was also a lawyer that had been hired by Mike
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  Speaker 1: Webster or his family either right before he died or
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  Speaker 1: right after he died, and Um the lawyer was trying
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to build a case to get Mike Webster disability from
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the NFL's um Disability Committee, and the disability Committee made
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  Speaker 1: a decision based on the science that was presented to
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  Speaker 1: them that said, yes, without a doubt, Mike Webster had
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  Speaker 1: severe brain damage and cognitive impairment from his years of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: playing football. And then it was the only time they'd
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: admitted it. They've been putting it off for years, and
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  Speaker 1: it got buried. And from that moment on, the NFL
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  Speaker 1: completely changed its its course and just denied, denied, deny
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  Speaker 1: um and that was the state of affairs there for
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: for a while. But as that was going on, simultaneously
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: been in Omalu, who has been UM at times very
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  Speaker 1: much vilified. He's put his foot in his mouth a lot.
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  Speaker 1: He speaks publicly out of line. UM. He said once
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  Speaker 1: that UM he would bet his medical license that O. J.
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  Speaker 1: Simpson had ct has CTE UM and the implication being
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that that's why he killed Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown.
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  Speaker 1: I guess I should say allegedly. I don't know what
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: what what do you say if somebody gets off for
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: murder in a criminal trial but is convicted of it
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: in a civil trial. I don't know at any rate,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: just just saying stuff that like a man of science
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: shouldn't do. But the thing is is, when you look
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  Speaker 1: at the work that he's doing, his actual work is unimpeachable.
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  Speaker 1: His public persona is kind of lacking. But at the
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  Speaker 1: same time, the work he's doing stands up. And there's
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  Speaker 1: plenty of other people who have kind kind of come
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  Speaker 1: and joined the cause or we're already researching ct who
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: have really kind of redoubled their efforts to try to
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: figure out what's going on here. Yeah, Chiefly there's a
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  Speaker 1: neuropathologist named Ann McKee that has joined up UH with him,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: and they're they're sort of the main face of this
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: uh CTE campaign. At this point, she's in League of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: denial as well. There there's just really interesting people because
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: they're very much dedicated to getting to the bottom of it. Yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And one of the big reasons why this is a
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: bigger deal than when you know, we're talking about boxing,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and you know how many people boxing is pretty niche sport,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: but a lot of kids play football. And what they're
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: finding out is that children especially are at risk because
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: they think and this is this is all they said.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: They're in the toddler phase of CTE research right now,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: so they're really learning a lot um like as we speak.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: But um, one thing they think is a big factor
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: is the length of the neck two. Yeah, to brace
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: and deal with these hits to the head. Um. Obviously
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean like, oh, you got a strong neck,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: you can just get hit in the head over and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: over and over. But they're saying for kids, especially these
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: uh young boys and even girls now who play football
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: as like early teenagers, that's super dangerous. There's also there's
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a brain research name Robert Cantu from Boston University UM,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and he was saying that in addition to the neck
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: being less developed, the mile in sheaths, which UM UH
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: protect our nerve endings are nerves, including our neurons in
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: our brain UM are less developed, so there's less protection UM.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And there's other factors to like, uh, girls are more
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: susceptible to uh cte than boys, and like if you're dehydrated,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you're more likely to develop cte UM. There's a lot
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: of different risk factors, but it does seem to be
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: ages playing one of them. And the problem is is
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: if you send a kid in fourteen year old into
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a game and they get a concussion where they and
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: they keep playing. Yeah, they may stop playing football after
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: high school, but decades later they could conceivably develop ct
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: They could develop ct without ever having officially had a concussion. Right.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: You know they're doing these tests now with these uh
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  Speaker 1: these sensors inside helmets, and you don't necessarily have to
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: have a concussion. It's all about this sustained abuse over time. Right.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So there's and it's not just football, no, it's not.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: There's a bunch of other uh activities I guess you
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: could say, including sports, but non sports too, activities like
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: getting in car crashes over and overhere to get well true,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: but you know, obviously UH hockey rugby, wrestling, Uh, soccer,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: all those header balls they say can have an impact
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: over time. Yeah. As a matter of fact, soccer internationally
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and nationally is starting to um come under more scrutiny
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: because they're realizing, like, yeah, you don't have to get
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a concussion to to develop CTE. Horseback riding the list, uh, lacrosse, skiing, Um,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: most of those are sports based. But anything where you
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  Speaker 1: are getting that sort of impact repeatedly over time is
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: gonna It's just it's it builds that damage up. It
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: seems like it's not like once you get over that concussion,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: then you're back at square zero exactly. That's exactly right.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: It's progressive, right. So uh, and what they're finding based
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: on some of these tests, like you were saying, there's
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: something called subconcussive events to where say like you're heading
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a soccer ball, but you don't see stars afterward, or
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: you um are fine with bright lights. There's there's no
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: symptoms of a concussion. But as far as your brains concerned,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: it just took an impact and it as these things
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: accumulate a little subconcussive e, especially when an actual concussion
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: is thrown in or multiple concussions. That's what they think
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: is the mechanism behind the development of ct Alright, so
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: symptom wise, Um, if you're talking to the average everyday person,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: they want to understand what it's like. Uh, there are
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: different stages their three. In stage one, Um, you're gonna
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: be dizzy and have headaches, and also, uh, your attention
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: span is gonna be cut down. Um, you're gonna have
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: that general difficulty concentrating on things. You're gonna be disoriented.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: You might be a little more aggressive and have that
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: impulse control, which and I know Amala probably shouldn't be
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: shooting his mouth off about o J, but um, I
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: mean that's possible. Like there have been all sorts of situations.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Real these NFL players of like their families are saying,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: you know, they're not the same person. They're aggressive, they're
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: getting in fights now which they never used to do.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: They're depressed or suicidal. So uh, oddly they're not showing
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think they were conclusively showing that link yet,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: but no, it seems to sort of be obvious, and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in fact we should say that there there has not
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: been a conclusive link between repetitive head injuries from sports,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: from contact sports and c t E. The science is
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: still being worked out, and of course again there's never anything,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: there's never there's no such thing as settled science. So
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: if that's what you're looking for, it's never gonna get there.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: But what they're starting to do now is a mass
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: enough of a medical literature, um that that yes, the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the link will be conclusive basically all right, so second stage, um,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: in addition to all the first your behavior might get
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: even more unpredictable and your memories even worse. And then
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: finally stage three. Uh, all those former stages us even
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: slower movements, literally staggering, trembling, deafness, maybe you can't even
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: speak correctly. Yeah, the final stage is very sad. Right.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: And so if you are a doctor and somebody comes
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: to you presenting like this, you're gonna be like, wow,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: this this guy's got Alzheimer's, or you would have before
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: now you'd probably be a lot more likely to be
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: like my CTE. But we can't check. No, no, you can't.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And let's go a little into the brain. The only
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: way that you can diagnose ct E is postmortem, like
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you're saying, right, um, And what they're looking for is
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: this accumulation of TOW proteins. And again they're not a
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: certain how this is going on, but this is what
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: they think, especially when they start to include research on
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: tow proteins from Alzheimer's. So, normally, in your brain, tow
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: proteins um give structure to what they're called microtubules, which
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: are inside the neurons and they basically act as little
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: transport chain insidety to your little brain cells. Right. Well,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: these tow proteins um strengthen and de strengthen these microtubules
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: depending on whether the brain needs those microtubules at any time.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And there's some type of event called hyper phosphoration in
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: which the tow proteins actually become destabilized. They're they're weakened,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: which is normal, but they're not able to regain strength,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: which is also normal. So as they become weaker and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: weaker and weaker, these TOW proteins actually kind of break
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: up and they start to accumulate within the neuron. They
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: accumulate in the accent which is where a neuron transmits
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: information there in the dendrites eventually, which is where it
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: receives information, and then they start to accumulate even in
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: just the neural body, and with all of this starting
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to clog up, the neuron itself dies And when enough
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of this stuff happens, a whole region of the brain
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: can start to die off, been wither. And that's when
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: you have all of these symptoms that are basically identical
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: to Alzheimer's. The the key is this there they have
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: associated the presence of this in former football players who
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: are known to have gotten concussions, who are known to
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: have gotten all of these subconcussive events on a daily basis,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: with um what they're seeing in these same deed football
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: players brains. And at this point all they can do
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: is say, yeah, man, like, of course this caused this,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: but they can't say exactly how it's causing it. They
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: haven't reached that point yet. All right, Well, let's take
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: a break and we'll come back and talk a little
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: bit more about where this is all headed and what
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the NFL is doing about it. Alright, So, one of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the big problems with c T e UM is that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: there is no cure at this point. So the best
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: practice is to avoid the cause, which is getting hit
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: in the head a lot, over and over and over. Yeah,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: but how do you do that with football? Well, that's
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: that's the rub. It's very tough. Uh. There are some
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: schools of thought that say, these players know what they're
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: getting into. If you ask them, many of them would probably,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: if not most, say, we know the risks. We are
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: willing to shorten our lives. Our careers will be limited,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: all for the rush of being on that field, the
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: adoration of the fans, and all that money we know
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: we're getting into. We know it's a dangerous thing, and
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: we're willing to do so. Anyway, A lot of them
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: would not. All of him, though, of course not. I mean,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: there have been some really high profile cases, like a
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: guy named Junior say ow Right, who's like a legend
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: in the NFL. He committed suicide and his brain, after
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: a very long struggle, was um found to have was
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: diagnosed as cte UM. There I oh, I can't speak
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: for anybody who's died, but there are a lot of
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: um people who are suffering now who are who wouldn't
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: go back and do it again in the exact same way. Well,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: regret is different than I mean, you asked the young
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: man exiting college and he says, yeah, I know where
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: this is going to lead me us the old person
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: suffering from dementia, and they'll say, well, young me didn't
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: know what he was talking about. I would trade all
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: the money and all the fame to go back and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: lead a fuller life. The key to this, the chuck
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: is would that young man's that if you go back
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: even further to that ten year old boy, it what
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: his mom knowing all this let him play. And if
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: numbers are down in little league football, which is bad
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: news for the NFL because those little league players who
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: are really good eventually become NFL stars that make the
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: NFL a lot of money, which is one of the
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: main reasons why they tried very hard to clamp down
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: on public awareness of this. So the NFL, on their part,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: have tried to limit concussions. Now, um, it's not working
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: so far as far as limiting concussions. Oh no, I
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: thought they were down In two thousand fourteen there were
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: two hundred and six and two thifteen there were two
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: seventy one. So that's not what I saw. Yeah, it's
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: really depends on the year, like they're up and down
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: each year. They're definitely not in some downward trajectory though, overall,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: PBS has like gone all in on tracking CTE and
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: they actually did a concussion watch and they counted the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: concussions I guess diagnosed can since I'm not sure in
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: every game and they came up with, well, the NFLS
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: is two seventy one, which is sort of commuch or
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to what you would think NFL or PBS. As far
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: as the stance for football guests, Well, you think the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: NFL would be the ones under playing it, you know.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But um, at any rate, Uh, they've tried to change
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: some of the rules as far as leading as a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: tackler with the crown of your helmet. They have moved
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the kickoff forward so now there aren't as many runbacks
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: on kickoffs and that's where a lot of the high
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: impact collisions occur is on kickoffs and the special teams plays. Uh.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: It's a rub though, because fans like the NFL is
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: known and I'd love the NFL, Like I'm at odds
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with myself on this because part of what you love
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: about the game is the game as it is, and
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: you can't regulate, uh injury out of the NFL or
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: head injury out of the NFL because it wouldn't be
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: football anymore. Like you literally couldn't have people tackling people. UM,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: actually went to a game. Have you ever been to
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: an NFL game and sat close to the field close fish?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: It's like I was talking to my buddies who I
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: was with. I was like, you get close down there,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and you're like, man, I would literally need an ambulance
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: on any play that happened. Period. I don't see how
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: these men get up at all when you see these
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: collisions they take. But that's what the fans love about
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the sport, and that's what the NFL is built on.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: So to change that would fundamentally change the game. Um.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, the NFL doesn't. You know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: they've been really shady. UH as far as how they've
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: handled all this over the years. They there was a
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: congressional report that found that they they basically made a
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: thirty million dollar a gift unrestricted gift in two thousand
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: twelve to the National Institutes of Health to look into
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: head injuries. UH. They found out that they the research
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: wasn't so friendly to the NFL, so they tried to
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: get the the UH. The main researcher from UH. I
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: think it was either Boston College or bu stripped of
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: his position even though there they weren't supposed to monkey
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: around with any of it. It It was like, nope, you
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: do your unbiased research and we're staying out of it.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: So yeah, they didn't stay out of it. They were
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: found out. Then they said, you know what, We're not
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: going to give you that full thirty million. Then oh,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: you're joking. They pulled the final sixteen million from the
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: from the research, and UM basically denied up until literally
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: this year. In March of this year was the first
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: time an NFL senior vice president stood up and acknowledged
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the link between CTE publicly and football. Well, they also
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: settled with five thousand former players for a billion dollars,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: and they settled because it was found that they had
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: tried to suppress evidence about concussions, leading to CTE keep
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the players unaware of this UM And there's a lot
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of those players and that we're saying no, no no, no,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Like now this all come out and they're like that
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: payoff is nothing, sure, Like I want out of this suit. Yeah,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: because again, please please take the time to go watch
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: League of Denial. They do such an amazing job talking
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: about the Nefariu stuff that the NFL has done over
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the years to try to like keep this out of
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the players awareness, keep it out of the public awareness.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: But they also do a really good job of getting
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: across like what life can be like for some of
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: these players. And we should say for some of people,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: even players with CTE found to have ct after death
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be suicidal or that
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: they had um Alzheimer's symptoms or anything like that. But
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: for the ones that do, they have a really rough life,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and so does their families as a matter of fact,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: and that really comes across in the document Memory. Well,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: there's just one study they did that they took brains
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: of a hundred and sixty five former football players. Um,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: it could have been high school, college, NFL, or obviously
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: all three if you went to the NFL, A hundred
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: and thirty one of the one had ct and of
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the ninety one that played in the NFL of them
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: had ct YE. And it's shocking. And they do make
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: the point in this article that those who choose, whose
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: families or individuals chose to donate their brains are probably
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: people that likely have the CTE. Right when you're healthy,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: you're not thinking I need to donate my brain to science.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: That's what they need, you know, they need like all
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: kinds of h people. I mean, you know athletes. Well,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: actually there's a test that was kind of fortuitous from
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: u c l A. Actually, they're people are trying to
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: figure out how they can diagnose c t E in
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: living people, right um, and it's there. They have not
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: figured it out yet. They're trying to figure out how
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: to like die the tow proteins in the brain to
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: see accumulations and then check to see if there's beta
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: amyloids too out they will. But this U c l
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: A researcher duo of researchers found that um, they could
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: check for the shrinkage of volume and parts of the
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: brain and correlate those two ones that have been found
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: through autopsies of football players with CTE. Right, and they
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: scanned some guys brain still alive. Former football player has
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: all the um all the symptoms of CTE UM and
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: crucially he also had a UM M r I done
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: like four years before, so they could compare his current
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: brain size to what he had four years before and
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: see the regions that were shrinking and one region lost
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: like four of its volume and just the four years.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: But they found that these regions correlate with stuff they're
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: seeing in CTE and former football players. So they're thinking
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: maybe they can use this as the test, just look
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: for shrinkage in different brain regions. Well, one thing they
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: do know is that, uh, in two thousand and eight,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: they did a survey and the NFL. Former NFL players
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: get Alzheimer's at a rate about six times higher than
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the general population, which is no surprise. Um, But like
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: we're talking about earlier, that whole link to depression and suicide,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Apparently former NFL players are less likely to have depression
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and less likely to commit suicide, almost six less likely. Um,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that says a whole lot though.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: I don't think that disproves at all that depression and
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: suicide can also be you know, part of CTE. That
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: smells like an NFL funded study. Yeah, just I don't know.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Something's not adding up with that. Yeah. Again, if you
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: watch the legal denial, you're like, question everything everybody. It's weird.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: It's a really weird situation because it's on one side,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: you've got the NFL fighting for its life, throwing everything
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: it can't money and lawyers, and doing really dirty stuff
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: like discrediting the doctors involved, trying to get an I H.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Researchers fired. And on the other side, you've got all
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of these incredibly well educated, incredibly in some cases egotistical
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: neuro neurologists and neuro researchers who are all vuying to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: be like the one who makes the connection with ct E.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: The science is out there enough that there's someone someone
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: can come along and be like, here case closed, put
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: my name on this. And there's a lot of gross
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: stuff like Junior Sayou's brain. Um had a lot of
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: people after it in like just the hours after he died,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: and they were calling his family and ailing his family
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: and like bad mouthing one another when they were talking
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to his son saying like, hey, give us the brain.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: You don't want to give it to Boston University. Their
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: ghoules will probably eat some of it, you know. Um,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: it's just a weird situation that's going on, very sad. Yeah,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: you got anything else I do not well that is
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: ct and I can assure you there will be plenty
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: more of that because they're still figuring it out, but
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: if you want to know more about it in the meantime,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: type those letters into the search part how stuff works
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: dot Com. Since I said search bars signed for listener, ma'am,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this Halloween response. Hey guys, UH, normally
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: skip the Halloween podcast because I'm I'm not much a
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: fan of ghost stories, but I thought it was broad daylight,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: so I'll go ahead and listen. My first ghost story
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: actually gave me the creeps. The reason I'm writing, though,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: is you pointed out that the majority of horror stories
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: to pick violence against women. Being a fan of horror
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: movies is interesting. He doesn't like ghost stories, but he
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: likes horror moans. Not definite, but these aren't even ghost stories.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Being a fan of horror movies, I would be lying
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: if I said it wasn't something I had wondered about myself.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: After listening to some great true Prime true crime podcasts, though,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: of which there are many, I've concluded that the reason
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: is that stuff is art imitating life. A lot of
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: these movies or stories are based on true events. Unfortunately,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: in the real world, violence against women, especially with serial killers,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: is far more common. UH. When people set out to
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: write horror. They usually research existing crimes to base ideas
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: off of in order to make it more realistic and
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: in turn more frightening. So it may be easier to
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: change fiction to be less sexist. Uh, the real issue
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: lies more in the world that we live in, and
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: I guess we can probably convince cereal killers start killing
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: more men, we'll probably continue to see more violence. Until
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: we do that, we'll see more violence against women in
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: horror films. I never thought about that, James. It's a
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: good point. It's a pretty good hypothesis. Actually, it makes
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a great case. Thanks James. H. If you want to
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: get in touch with us to say, hey, man, here's
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: something smart we love hearing that, you can tweet to
• 38:12
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• 38:14
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• 38:17
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• 38:19
  Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works dot com.