Scientists believe CTE is not caused by concussions but rather continuous head impacts

Many have said that CTE or chronic traumatic encephalopathy is actually caused by the number of concussions a player has in his career, but that is not the case.
A group of doctors and students performed a study to find that the risk of CTE is not driven by the number of diagnosed concussions, but rather by the cumulative number and intensity of head impacts.
The study, utilizing a novel tool called a positional exposure matrix (PEM), suggests that reducing both the frequency and force of head impacts in practice and games could lower the odds of athletes developing CTE.
Just this week a female Australian rugby player was diagnosed with CTE, which is the first time a female in sports has been diagnosed with the disease.
In the most comprehensive study of CTE conducted yet, which examined 631 deceased football players, scientists discovered that the number of diagnosed concussions alone was not associated with CTE risk.
The study, conducted by researchers at Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical School, and Boston University (BU), was published today in Nature Communications.
This is pretty impressive, and shows that concussions are not just linked to CTE, but rather head shots. This could be a huge factor for the NFL players association to look into when it comes to retirement and their benefits.
Earlier this year, Boston University CTE Center announced that they have now diagnosed 345 former NFL players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) out of 376 former players studied (91.7 percent). If this doesn’t get the attention of the NFLPA I am not sure what will.

NFL Draft Diamonds was created to assist the underdogs playing the sport. We call them diamonds in the rough. My name is Damond Talbot, I have worked extremely hard to help hundreds of small school players over the past several years, and will continue my mission. We have several contributors on this site, and if they contribute their name and contact will be in the piece above. You can email me at nfldraftdiamonds@gmail.com