The risk in football

A long-awaited study commissioned by the Football Association and the Professional Footballers' Association has found former professional footballers are three and a half times more likely to die of dementia than people of the same age range in the general population.

The study began after claims that former West Brom striker Jeff Astle died because of repeated head trauma. Former England international Astle developed dementia and died in 2002 at the age of 59. The inquest into his death found heading heavy leather footballs repeatedly had contributed to trauma to his brain.

 It compared deaths of 7,676 ex-players to 23,000 from the general population. 

It began in January last year and was led by consultant neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart, who said that "risk ranged from a five-fold increase in Alzheimer's disease, through an approximately four-fold increase in motor neurone disease, to a two-fold Parkinson's disease in former professional footballers compared to population controls".

Dr Stewart said: "This is the largest study to date looking in this detail at the incidence of neurodegenerative disease in any sport, not just professional footballers. Our data show that while former footballers had higher dementia rates, they had lower rates of death due to other major diseases."

They were less likely to die of other common diseases, such as heart disease and some cancers, including lung cancer.