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Why Don’t Helmets Prevent Concussions?


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Helmets protect your head—but they can’t fully protect your brain. This helps to explain why football players continue to incur brain trauma that may lead to debilitating brain disease.

Recently, a team of researchers presented more evidence of the devastating progression of a brain disease caused by repeated brain trauma. On December 2, researchers from Boston University, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and other institutions published findings in the journal Brain that document the changes caused by chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Over the course of this neurodegenerative disease, those afflicted experience symptoms ranging from headaches and difficulty concentrating in Stage 1, to the dementia and aggression of Stage 4. Repeated mild traumatic brain injuries such as concussions cause CTE, making the disease of special concern for athletes and military personnel.

The researchers posthumously analyzed samples from the brains of 85 subjects, including athletes and veterans, with a history of traumatic brain injuries. These samples revealed the disease’s progressive course through the brain, including the presence of tangled tau proteins, a marker of cognitive decline also associated with Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to documenting the disease’s pathology, the study bolsters the argument that head injuries sustained by athletes may contribute to this disease. Of the 85 subjects, the scientists identified 68 cases of CTE and 64 were in individuals who had played contact sports such as football or hockey.

But football and hockey players wear helmets—shouldn’t they protect players from the trauma of a head-on collision? As the video below from Yale University’s Ainissa Ramirez shows, helmets are designed to protect the skull—not the brain. The brain can be hurt as it smashes against the skull, causing a range of symptoms including headaches and loss of consciousness.






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  1. 1. julianpenrod 8:41 pm 12/5/2012

    This criticizes “science”, so it may not be printed. During the Seventies and Eighties, extensive legislation was introduced to require children to wear helmets for everything from bike riding to skateboarding to roller blading to rollerskating. All based on a single incident of a freak accident in a century’s worth and tens of millions of children’s worth of use. Parents were called negligent if they ignored the 1 in 100 million at best chance that their child might be hurt. A cartoon of Marvel’s “Fantastic Four” had the rock hard Thing riding a motor scooter in a helmet, to avoid diluting the propaganda. Because that’s all it was. Crooked corporations bought legislators to pass laws requiring helmet and knee and elbow pad usage and co-opted corrupt “scientists” to provide “proof” they were urgently needed.
    Now, it’s demonstrated that the very thing helmets were supposed to protect against, they don’t. Shills will opine that helmet use in football is not the same as helmet use in riding a bike. But, among other things, the brain sloshes about without protection from the helmet whether the person is bike riding or playing football. And, frankly, any incident involving enough force to cause a concussion is just as serious whether it occurs while biking or playing football.
    If a helmet will not protect from force that can cause a concussion in football, it won’t protect from that force if experienced while biking.
    And, if that kind of force is not experienced while biking, then a helmet is not necessary!
    And, what important information undermining the “value” of vaccines is being withheld from the gullible public by corrupt “scientists” paid to shills for criminal drug companies?

    Link to this

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