One Out of Three Former NFL Players Think They Have CTE, the Traumatic Brain Disease Linked to Murders and Suicides

Far from the bright lights of the football field, former NFL players are asking themselves a chilling question: are they suffering from CTE?

About a third of surveyed former NFL players in a new study in the journal JAMA Neurology suspect they're suffering from CTE, which stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive neurodegenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma and which has been repeatedly diagnosed in athletes who committed headline-grabbing killings or suicide.

One such infamous case of CTE is Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots tight end whose sordid life story of murder and suicide has recently hit the small screen on FX in a dramatic miniseries.

The researchers behind the study, drawn from multiple institutions including Harvard University, wanted to investigate links between suicidal ideation and when a person thinks they have CTE, which can only be diagnosed in post-mortem autopsies.

People with CTE can end up suicidal, depressed, erratic, aggressive and suffer from memory problems, among other cognitive issues.

For the study, the researchers surveyed 1,980 ex-NFL players and found that 34 percent of them think they have the brain disease along with reports of depression, pain and low testosterone.

Of those who suspect they have CTE, 25 percent reported suicidal thoughts. In contrast, only five percent of people who didn't think they have CTE suffered that same thinking.

These people who had a perception of having CTE also "were more likely to have health problems associated with cognitive impairment compared with men without perceived CTE," the study reads.

The wrinkle, though, is that it's not clear that the athletes who think they have CTE actually do.

"Our findings suggest that some suicidality may stem from the assumption that a former player has an untreatable neurodegenerative disease," the researchers write.

Basically, the very idea that you have CTE may make you more suicidal, and physical symptoms could be explained by other conditions.

"A key takeaway from this study is that many conditions common to former NFL players such as sleep apnea, low testosterone, high blood pressure and chronic pain can cause problems with thinking, memory and concentration," said the Director of Epidemiological Research Initiatives at Harvard University's Football Players Health Study and the study's first author Rachel Grashow in a statement on the research.

"While we wait for advances in CTE research to better address living players’ experiences, it is imperative that we identify conditions that are treatable," she added. "These efforts may reduce the chances that players will prematurely attribute symptoms to CTE which may lead to hopelessness and thoughts of self-harm."

It's no wonder many football players think they have CTE. There have been numerous reports of former athletes committing murder or killing themselves or behaving erratically and dying relatively young, after which an autopsy uncovers CTE in their brain.

And while it's true that other factors can lead to cognitive impairment, the fact of the matter is that past studies show that CTE is prevalent among NFL players.

A previous study in 2017 revealed that after examining the brains of 111 professional football players, 110 had signs of CTE. Another more recent study in 2023 showed that researchers found CTE in 345 former NFL players out of a cohort of 376.

Beyond CTE, repeated head trauma can also lead to Parkinson’s disease, as vividly illustrated in the sad case of former NFL quarterback Brett Favre who disclosed his condition this week.

News reports on the brain health of other athletes and research findings must weigh heavily on the minds of football players and other people with repeated concussions.

So these former athletes are completely logical in thinking they may have this terrible brain disease. And what's chilling is that they're likely right.

More on CTE: OJ Simpson’s Family Refuses to Let Scientists Examine His Brain for CTE