There was a segment on some television news-magazine a while back about the physical degeneration of former football players, and how a lot of them have trouble walking when they're only in their 40s or 50s. That would be bad enough, but I can imagine the mental problems would be awful.

It's not football, but boxers make me sad. Watching Muhammad Ali from the 60's, he was so clever -- strong and handsome and smart. And now he can hardly speak.

Using up your body is one thing -- there doesn't seem to be any way to play elite sports without it. But using up your mind is terrifying.

I can't enjoy watching boxing or football; the hits just look too painful.

2: Gawd, Ali just kills me. Comparisons of Young Ali and Old Ali are just heartbreaking. OTOH, without boxing, there is no Ali.

without boxing, there is no Ali

You do not think he could have done something else?

The mind is damaged collaterally, as it were. I was explaining the other day that the thick necks of football players are an attempt to minimize the damage certain when armored men run headfirst into one another. I've thought for a long time football would be improved by mandating less protective gear, more like rugby.

I used to box, and probably had mild concussions, but of course I didn't do it every day, in the belief that sparring and taking blows better prepared me for a big showdown. I don't know what to do about that; I was a middle class kid with no professional ambitions, just trying to have experiences.

the seriousness of concussions is only beginning to be understood.

I attended a lecture on concussion about twenty years ago wherein the data showed, among other things, that people admitted to hospitals for over-night observation after a concussion were much more likely to lose jobs, get divorced, get arrested, and so on.

'Twas convincing enough so I resolved to shoot rather than take a hit to the head and disproportionate response theory be damned to hell and back.

The new MRx gadgets show more of what's going on but the neurodocs knew well before now that banging jello around inside a hard can wasn't at all good for it.

Do we really know what happened with Ali? I'm sure the boxing didn't help, but there are a lot of boxers who aren't in such bad shape.

I once saw Ali in a Chicago restaurant consume in one sitting three of the largest steaks I've ever seen in my life. The man was amazing.

I love both boxing and football, but am not sure how I'd feel about my son participating in either of them when he gets older.

Ali turned 65 yesterday, the news article was a little sad to read (though it does say his mind is still sharp). It's the Parkinson's that's causing most of his problems, but I'm not sure if that's something that can be induced by blows to the head. Couldn't have helped, though.

Do we really know what happened with Ali? I'm sure the boxing didn't help, but there are a lot of boxers who aren't in such bad shape

Very controversial. The official Wikipedia version is that he has Parkinson's Disease, which his father certainly did have. On the other hand, there's credible reason to believe he actually has Martland's syndrome, caused by repeated blows to the head. Since he spent the last phase of his career playing "rope-a-dope" (and people actually use this to describe our master plan in Iraq, presumably forgetting its consequences) and intentionally taking lots of punches, it's not surprising that it was him rather than other boxers who really caught it. There were certainly plenty of people warning him during his career; his doctor and trainer both resigned after the Earnie Shavers fight because they didn't want to be involved any more.

By the way, Chris "Harvard" Nowinski! I thought he was a ton of fun in the old WWF.

Hrm. I'd thought that the link was established, but googling says maybe, maybe not. Still, boxing often leads to brain damage, regardless of what happened to Ali.

You do not think he could have done something else?

Sure, but he would have been someone no one ever heard of. He wouldn't have been "Ali."

I'm sure the boxing didn't help, but there are a lot of boxers who aren't in such bad shape.

And a lot aren't. I don't want to overstate this, because it's from a half-remembered conversation with a neurologist, but I think there are a fair number of studies connecting boxing with neurological problems.

Or, rather than googling I could just wait around for some bombastic Welshman to show up with the information.

Boxing is a weird one, there are lots of talented boxers who retired early and who didn't really take that many hits in their career who are perfectly fine.

The journeyman pros and heavyweights who slug it out for years and years, though, their brains are just a mess.

I spar* (savate), and take the occasional hit to the head, it doesn't really worry me, though: amateur boxers and martial artists -- even ones who spar fairly regularly -- take a tiny fraction of the head hits and at a tiny fraction of the power that professional boxers do.

* not really full-contact, but it can still bloody hurt ...

I've thought for a long time football would be improved by mandating less protective gear, more like rugby.

I believe there is actual research substantiating this, but I am too lazy to look for it.

re: 16

Yes, that's my understanding too. Certainly, having played rugby (a long time ago, at school) I'd much rather be tackled by someone with no pads and no helmet.

Macho sports: stupid and bad for you. Duh.

Rugby also has the helpful rule of requiring the tackler to wrap. Thus, no flying shoulder blocks. Well, very rare, at least. And usually at a low level where it's more "I'm running into you because I can't figure out how to get low."

Lots of controversy in rugby right now about spine/neck injuries in the scrum, and even suggestions that the contested scrum be done away with. I'm of two minds: one is "don't fuck with tradition, losers" the other is "wait, don't I have a herniated C6/C7 from five years of being at the front of a scrum?"

It's the dose that makes the poison, B.

Bare knuckles or bust.

Ali doesn't have the symptomology of aging boxers who are punch-drunk. He has the symptomology of a Parkinson's patient. There are plenty of non-boxers who look just like him. Which isn't to say that boxing doesn't run a risk of serious brain trauma; it certainly does.

However, this is why, despite the fact that it looks more brutal, mixed martial arts is much safer for the fighters. A 12 round boxing match often involves several hundred hard blows to the head, with big padded gloves that protect the hands, allowing you to hit much harder.

Pwned.

I spar* (savate), and take the occasional hit to the head, it doesn't really worry me, though: amateur boxers and martial artists -- even ones who spar fairly regularly -- take a tiny fraction of the head hits and at a tiny fraction of the power that professional boxers do.

That's been my experience as well. I've been bloodied a few times, or taken the occasional hard shot, but more painful than damaging. Nothing remotely like the punishment boxers take.

people admitted to hospitals for over-night observation after a concussion were much more likely to lose jobs, get divorced, get arrested, and so on.

But aren't reckless or aggressive people more likely to get concussed in the first place? And wouldn't such people be more likely to get divorced, arrested or fired whether concussed or not? Not denying the awful effects of boxing injuries, but wondering about causal relationships in this study.

Most likely Ali's condition was brought on by several factors, with genetics and boxing being the two most effective causes.

this page (which is simply the first google hit for parkinson's etiology) describes the proximal cause of Parkinson's being the death of a certain percentage of a certain population of dopamine producing neurons. The other causal factors it names basically look like things that can kill this population of neurons. Repeated concussions could easily be added to the list.

Oddly, the page makes the evidence for a genetic basis of Parkinson's more ambiguous than I thought. Twin studies at least initially have failed to find the right correlations.

re: 22 and martial arts, etc.,

Certainly when doing savate I don't get hit in the head that much compared to boxing because both the need to protect yourself from being kicked in the shins (for example) and the footwork required to allow for kicking to the head mean that you aren't in 'head-punching' range that often.

However, I don't know if mixed martial arts -- or martial arts in general -- are necessarily safer in terms of sheer numbers of injuries. MMA competitors and people doing grappling arts as a hobby get a lot of joint injuries, for example. [that's one reason I personally would never go in for that sort of training]

On the plus side, the injuries received aren't long term permanent brain injuries.

MMA competitors and people doing grappling arts as a hobby get a lot of joint injuries, for example.

I'm telling you, the Mixed Fucking Arts are much safer and more enjoyable.

Incidentally, there have been some studies that suggest that football (i.e. soccer) players who head the ball a lot also suffer from concussion related brain damage in later life.

Even the pros, when sparring wear the padded head protector. This is mostly to protect the skin, to keep it from being cut and torn, which happens in real bouts, and as it can be grounds for stopping, is a real weak point. I never went a single round without the head protector, as well as those pillowy gloves, but the impacts were astounding anyway. Fat lips, loosened teeth—they tightened back up— and walking around hours afterward with a sound in my ears alternatively like the fuzz of radio static and a more pronounced ringing noise.

But aren't reckless or aggressive people more likely to get concussed in the first place?

I'd think so. That correlation -> causation is the weakness of most of the "risk factor" studies so popular these days. But there's some other evidence, as in 29 (unless anyone into sports is more aggressive than the norm), and the basic physics of what happens when brains bounce inside skulls.

What also makes things complicated and ambiguous is the capacity of the brain to re-wire itself after injury. That appears to vary among individuals as can be seen by the different recoveries after strokes and such (and complicated by differences in treatment and rehab.

I'm out of touch with the current research but it would be interesting to look at what some of the more sensitive tests show. With all the interest in Alzheimer's there's been lots of newer work done in detecting small changes in brain functioning.

re: 30

In my experience the head protectors make it worse, rather than better. They prevent cuts, but do little to cut down the impact and sort of spread it out in an unpleasant way. I haven't done much proper boxing -- although do sometimes do some light sparring -- but the little I did, I hated the headguards.

If people are hitting you hard enough to leave your head ringing for hours, in a friendly sparring session, my own personal inclination would be to tell them to back off. There's no need for it.

safer in terms of sheer numbers of injuries

Not in sheer number, no. But in long-term severity, absolutely.

It was years ago and this only happened a couple of times; most of the time, while you retained the sensation of being hit, it wasn't this reverberant, so to speak. And I'm a heavyweight, and would have been matched against another, for what that's worth.

It was years ago and this only happened a couple of times; most of the time, while you retained the sensation of being hit, it wasn't this reverberant, so to speak. And I'm a heavyweight, and would have been matched against another, for what that's worth.

Apparently I still have double vision, though.

re: 35

Technically, I'm on the line between cruiser-weight and heavyweight at the moment. But I'd be a light-heavy, probably, if I was in tip-top shape. Not that I'd ever compete in a proper boxing match.

re GcM ttaM in 29, this is a bit of Wikipedia on Jeff Astle : -
Both Albion and their fans were shocked by his death in 2002 in Queen's Hospital Burton upon Trent, at the age of just 59, from a degenerative brain disease. Failing mental ability had first become apparent as much as five years earlier. He had been an exceptional header of the ball, and the coroner found that the repeated minor trauma had been the cause of his death. (It should be noted that the leather footballs used in Astle's playing days were considerably heavier than the plastic ones of today, especially when wet.) A verdict of death by industrial injury was recorded

re: 38

Yes, I remember that Jeff Astle story at the time. I think it was possibly around that time I read of concussive damage in football players.