NFL players face nearly 4 times the death rate from brain diseases

National Football League players had nearly four times the expected mortality rate from neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, despite having lower overall mortality than the general population, a large study found.

Researchers at Mass General Brigham, Boston University, and the Concussion & CTE Foundation conducted the study, which included nearly 20,000 NFL players. Players whose NFL careers lasted five seasons or more had 2.38 times the Parkinson’s mortality rate of those who played one to four seasons.

Recommended Reading

July 8, 2026 News by Andrea Lobo

Parkinson’s advocates push for urgency as national plan begins

Researchers point to a clear population-level pattern

“This is the clearest population-level evidence we have ever had that NFL players are dying due to neurodegenerative disease at real and measurably higher rates,” Daniel Daneshvar, MD, PhD, chair of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School, director of the HealthSpan Lab, and a co-senior author of the study, said in a university news story.

“This study demonstrates that, when looking at athletes who have played in an NFL game … across every official cause of death, the result is the same: NFL players are dying of dementia and Parkinson’s disease three to four times more often than they should,” Daneshvar added.

The results were described in “Neurodegenerative mortality among National Football League Players,” published in eClinicalMedicine.

Parkinson’s disease is marked by the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons, the nerve cells that produce dopamine, a chemical messenger involved in controlling movement. As dopamine signaling becomes impaired, the movement and other symptoms of Parkinson’s can emerge.

Several studies have suggested that people with substantial exposure to repetitive head impacts, including American football players, may have a higher risk of developing Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Such exposure also has been associated with a higher rate of death from neurodegenerative diseases.

To learn more, researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of NFL players who debuted between 1960 and 2019 and appeared in at least one regular-season or postseason game.

Nearly 20,000 NFL players included in analysis

The study included 19,824 NFL players, who were followed for an average of 26.2 years. Of the 1,994 players who died, 178, or 8.9%, died from neurodegenerative diseases — 39 from Parkinson’s, 33 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and 106 from all-cause dementia. Most deceased players died from other causes, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, injury, and suicide.

Compared with the 1,816 players who died from non-neurodegenerative or unknown causes, those who died from neurodegenerative diseases were significantly older at death (72.5 vs. 59.1 years) and more likely to be white (69.7% vs. 51.3%). They also had significantly longer NFL careers (6.12 vs. 5.28 years) and played in more games (73.4 vs. 62).

Despite having lower all-cause mortality than an age-, sex-, race-, and calendar year-standardized general population, NFL players had 3.94 times the expected neurodegenerative mortality rate. Their Parkinson’s mortality rate was 3.88 times the expected rate.

Players whose careers lasted five seasons or more had 1.86 times the neurodegenerative mortality rate and 2.38 times the Parkinson’s mortality rate of players whose careers lasted one to four seasons.

Younger players showed the largest mortality gap

Overall neurodegenerative mortality was significantly higher among players who died before age 60. Their mortality rate was about 3.5 times that of NFL players who died at age 60 or older and more than 12 times the rate expected in the standardized general population. No Parkinson’s deaths occurred among players younger than 60.

“These findings strengthen evidence of [repetitive head impact] exposure-related neurodegenerative mortality in NFL players, an effect not explained by survivorship advantages associated with elite athletic selection. Together, this body of evidence supports the evaluation of healthspan-focused interventions and reinforces the need for policies limiting [repetitive head impact] exposure among NFL players,” the researchers wrote.

Jesse Mez, MD, a Boston University researcher and co-senior author of the study, said, “A fourfold increase in dementia rates from a presumed environmental cause is immense—and brain bank studies indicate that [chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)] is the primary explanation.”

“To put that in perspective, heavy lead exposure, which was banned from paint and gasoline in the U.S. due to its neurological and cardiovascular consequences, leads to a 2-to-3 times greater rate of dementia and a 1.5 times greater rate of cardiovascular death.”