GRID KIDS IN RISK ALERT

Brain study alarming

Researchers have found a link between youth-football players and long-term mental-health problems, adding to the growing conversation about the sport’s safety and its effects on the brain.

The Boston University study, published Tuesday in Nature’s Translational Psychiatry journal, found boys who start playing football before the age of 12 are at a higher risk of depression, apathy and other behavioral problems later in life.

“This study adds to growing research suggesting that incurring repeated head impacts through tackle football before the age of 12 can lead to a greater risk for shortand long-term neurological consequences,” said Michael Alosco, lead author of the study.

The researchers studied 214 former amateur and professional football players, with an average age of 51, and gave them cognitive tests online and by phone. They then compared the findings with men who started playing football before and after the age of 12.

Those who started playing before the age of 12 were twice as likely to experience problems with behavioral regulation, apathy and executive functioning — or the ability to problem-solve, organize and plan.

They were three times as likely to experience clinical depression by middle age, and those effects were compounded the younger the participant started playing.

The researchers chose 12 as the cutoff year because male brains experience a key period of development between the ages of 10 and 12.

The study was conducted by BU’s Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center. It added to previous research they’d done on the effects of tackle football, which found former NFL players who started tackle football prior to 12 had worse memory and mental flexibility than other players.

CTE, a neurodegenerative brain disease, is extremely common in professional football players and is marked by a buildup of abnormal protein in the brain, which disables neuropathways and leads to clinical malfunctions.

They include memory loss, impaired judgment, aggression, depression, anxiety and sometimes suicidal behavior.

A study published in July by the medical journal JAMA found 99 percent of the brains they studied, all from deceased NFL players, had CTE.

Retired NFL star quarterback Brett Favre and current New Orleans Saints running back Adrian Peterson have said they wouldn’t let their sons play because of the effects it can have on the brain.