News 2019

Study reveals dementia risk in former professional footballers A landmark study led by the University of Glasgow has revealed the first major insights into lifelong health outcomes in former professional footballers. In findings published today in The New England Journal of Medicine and funded by the Football Association (FA) and the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), researchers compared the causes of death of 7,676 former Scottish ma

Older people who have never taken part in sustained exercise programmes have the same ability to build muscle mass as highly trained master athletes of a similar age, according to new research at the University of Birmingham. The research shows that even those who are entirely unaccustomed to exercise can benefit from resistance exercises such as weight training.

Results of the largest study to date of the pathology of dementia in former footballers and rugby players have been revealed. ‌ In a study published in Acta Neuropathologica and led by the University of Glasgow in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, the researchers report that while a pathology associated with brain injury - chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) - might be common in former athletes with dementia, in many cases its clinical significance remains uncertain.

Elite athletes are less likely to take banned substances if they consider the morality of what they are doing, and not just the health consequences of doping, according to a new study led by the University of Birmingham and funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) . In the study, conducted in UK, Denmark, and Greece, 1,500 athletes were asked to complete a questionnaire about two hypothetical doping situations.