New dementia study launched to offer hope into football's dementia links

Researchers are asking for 120 ex-professional footballers to participate in ground breaking research investigating "possible ways to try and reduce dementia risk" for former players.

The £1.3 million, four-year study, led by the University of Glasgow and jointly funded by The Football Association and FIFA, will use brain imaging and a range of tests to compare brain health in mid-life former footballers to the general population.

In addition, in a world’s first, researchers will explore whether any differences in brain health among footballers might benefit from management of known dementia risk factors designed to try and their reduce risk.

The BrainHOPE (Optimising Brain Health Outcomes in former Professional and Elite footballers) study is led by Professor Willie Stewart, consultant neuropathologist at the University of Glasgow who said: “Our findings from the FIELD study show there is reason to worry about lifelong brain health in former footballers.

"BrainHOPE is designed to identify tests that might detect problems early on and, more importantly, possible ways to try and reduce dementia risk for former footballers.”

Five members of England’s World Cup-winning group including Ray Wilson, Martin Peters, Nobby Stiles, Alf Ramsey and Jack Charlton have all lost their lives to dementia and in 2021, the widow of World Cup winner Nobby Stiles donated his brain to Professor Stewart’s research into sports-related dementia.

In 2019, Professor Stewart led a FIELD study, the largest study to date, looking in detail at the risk of neurodegenerative disease in any sport, not just professional footballer players.

The study compared health records of 7,676 former Scottish male professional football players who were born between 1900 and 1976 against those of more than 23,000 matched individuals from the general population. Neurodegenerative disease risk among former football players relative to matched controls was then calculated for a range of player positions and career lengths and for decade of birth.

'We are grateful to the FA and FIFA for their support'

Last year, Professor Stewart, speaking as a guest on the Let’s Talk About Care podcast, called for the global rules of football to change and has given football bodies and other contact sports a wake-up call. He said: "Is heading a ball absolutely necessary for football? Is dementia absolutely necessary as a risk to play football? I don't think it is."

Charlotte Cowie, head of performance medicine at the FA, said: “The launch of the BrainHope study is another important step in building our understanding of the long-term health of former professional footballers.

"Forming part of the wider Prevent Dementia study, this research will help us further understand the links between the game and neurodegenerative diseases and also potential early interventions which could help reduce risk or speed of developing dementia.”

Prof Stewart added: “This is an incredibly important study, and we are grateful to the FA and FIFA for their support to allow it to proceed.”

Former professional football players interested in participating in this ground-breaking research should contact https://preventdementia.co.uk/prevent-sports/