Change Your Brain Every Day - NFL Football Concussions: Winners or Losers?

Episode Date: December 14, 2016

Football is so popular in the U.S. but the truth is football is one of the most dangerous games for your brain. We've scanned hundreds of football players and the results we're far from pleasing. In this episode, we'll share with you our studies and findings. Be sure to listen to the full episode and if you have any brain changing experience, we'd be happy to hear  it. Drop us an email or a video message. 

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amen.

Hi, I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. We're so excited to have you with us. Today is actually one of the most important lessons that I've learned from looking at nearly 100,000 scans. In fact, if people came up to me and said, Dr. Raymond, what's the single most important lesson you've learned? And that would be mild traumatic brain injury ruins people's lives and virtually no one knows about it. What most people don't know is that your brain is really soft. It's about the consistency of soft butter, tofu, custard, somewhere between egg whites and jello. Now, that's news to most people because they think it's firmed, fixed, and rubbery. Right. So I was going to say, so when I was taking my A&P, my anatomy and physiology classes in school, I thought of it as being this sort of hard, rubbery thing.

That's because it was soaked in formaldehyde. Right. That's what happens to it. But inside a living skull, it is really soft. Think toothpaste. And it's housed in a really hard skull that actually has multiple sharp bony ridges. And it's not fixed in your skull. So it's floating around. Your brain actually floats in this, in fluids called cerebral spinal fluid, mostly water. And so it's not stuck there. It floats.

So if it gets hit, what happens inside is it shakes and it bounces up against those ridges, which cause tears and bleeding and scarring. Now, the biggest example I have of this. So I've known this for 24 years since we started doing imaging in 1991. And at the same time, I knew playing football was bad for the brain, right? I played in high school. I loved playing. I mean, it was like the biggest joy in my life. But now we start seeing high school players, college players, professional players, and their brains just look awful. And the NFL started its concussion committee in 1994. Yet even by 2009, they'd never sponsored a brain imaging study, which basically meant they didn't want to know the answer to the

question. Because if you want to know the answer to the question, you look at the organ you treat. Anthony Davis came here, famous Hall of Fame running back from USC in 2007. And his brain at 55 actually looked like he was 85 and bad for 85, clearly a traumatic brain injury. He got so much better. He's like, Doc, we have to talk about this. And you just love him. He's such a wonderful human being. And he and I together sponsored the first and the world's largest imaging study on active and retired NFL players. And the level of damage was awful. It was even worse than I thought it was going to be.

But the exciting news, and you know, because you've been with me the whole time I've been doing this study, the exciting news is you're not stuck with the damaged brain you have. You can make it better. Researchers have linked past brain traumas to homelessness. In fact, a study from Toronto, 58% of the homeless men had a significant brain injury before they were homeless. 42% of the homeless women. I did a study at CR Tucson, one of the largest drug treatment hospitals in the United States.

44% of the new admissions to the hospital had a significant brain injury before their hospitalization. So homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, dementia, depression, anxiety disorders, ADHD, learning problems, all have been associated with either mild or moderate brain injuries. So I have a question about that because this actually makes me very sad. I'm a huge supporter of our soldiers and police officers. And so when I hear about things like this and I think about some of the soldiers that come back with blast injuries, a lot of them come back with brain injuries, traumatic brain injuries, but we don't know about it or we know about it and we're not treating it. What about the incidents of, say, domestic violence or they're not employable? What happens? I mean, has there been shown to be a large,

like a big connection between that? No question. There's a connection between traumatic brain injury and people who have marital problems, people who have problems with irritability, with violence. It's just the most important thing that I've learned. Another really important thing I learned along these lines is people forget they've had bad brain injuries. And, you know, the first time this happened to me, so I'm looking at a guy's scan. He was in my office for depression and anger, very common thing we see at Amen Clinics. And he had a dent in the left front side of his brain. And the only way you get a dent in the left front side of your brain is from an injury from the past. And I'm like, have you ever had a brain injury? And he said, no.

And I'm like, well, are you sure? And he said, I don't think so. And then in my mind, I'm thinking, well, ask him all the questions. I said, have you ever fallen out of a tree, off a fence, dove into a shallow pool? Did you have a concussion playing sports? Have you been in a bike accident, a motor vehicle accident? And all of a sudden it just happens like this. His face changed. And he's like, I'm so sorry I lied to you. I said, what? I said, when I was seven years old, I fell out of a second story window. Do you think that counts? Well, maybe. And then what I realized is people forget they have terrible brain injuries. Well, or sometimes they don't forget.

But let me just, okay, because I know you're going to go on about when I did the same thing. It happens so often. So I scanned her brain after a few weeks. We said that in the last show. So I meet him two and a half weeks after I meet him. He's like, I need to scan you before I can keep dating you. And I'm like, you know, I've never heard that that line before. I've heard so many lines. No one's ever told me they want to see my naked brain before, you know, anything else. So that was just really interesting. But he asked

me if I had a brain injury because it looked like a one part of my my brain that there was a dent. And and he said, so when did you have a brain injury? Now, I'm a neurosurgical ICU nurse. So my idea of a brain injury is different than what he was talking about. And falling out of a second story window. No, no, no, no. What I mean is to me, when someone has gunshot wounds. Well, to me, when you have a brain injury, you come into the hospital, you're like, you know, intubated, you're sedated. We're like, you know, we're going all out for these brain injuries that really are seriously. So tell them, tell them.

So I'm like, so when did you have a brain injury? Because the left side, there was some low activity. I mean, she has a great brain, but I knew she was going to be someone of a hothead, a little bit irritable. I was right. And she's like, I've never had a brain injury. And then I went, well, are you sure? Have you ever? And then tell them what you told me. So I was in a car accident with my sister. My sister was driving and we rolled the car at 75.

She rolled the car at 75 miles an hour. She fell asleep at the wheel. And we rolled two and a half times. I was laying back, fortunately, or I would have probably been dead because the roof of the car caved in. And so I woke up totally uninjured, I thought. And I was just grateful. I was grateful that I woke up. So I don't remember hitting my head, but there's a good chance because I was laying down that I hit the left side of my head on the console. I just was so happy to be walking away that it didn't really dawn on me. But think about the forces. Your brain is soft. It's complicated. It controls everything

you do. It's housed in a really hard skull with multiple sharp bony ridges, 75 miles an hour, and she falls asleep. It flips and then it stops. What is happening inside your skull is it's doing this the whole time, right? So boom, boom. And it can have a significant impact. Sure. Now you had a lot of brain reserve, which is another concept we'll talk about coming up in a future show. And so Eat, you're still wildly successful and totally cute and loving. But I do want to point something out because I never before that thought about this. People used to always make comments on my crazy memory. Like,

I was just, I could remember anything from anywhere. If you told me something, I'd never forget it. And I never put it together. But from that point on, right around that time, I never really put it together at that time. I had trouble remembering people's names until I could connect it multiple times. So I'd remember a face forever, but the name I would have trouble with, or little details about something, I'd have to put it together multiple times before it would stick. And that was never an issue before that. So. I remember this one guy. So, I mean, I have so many stories, but I saw one kid who had Tourette syndrome, you know, Tourette syndrome is a tick disorder where they have motor tics. So he had this head jerking thing and vocal tics where they make

noises and sometimes even swear. And when you get a scan here at Amen Clinics, you have to lay really still. And he couldn't because of the head tech. So I actually climbed on top of him in the camera, held his head down. And now that he and I had this really close relationship, I said, well, stay afterwards. Let me look at the scan with you. And he was fairly irritable. And when I looked at his scan, he had very clear evidence of a brain injury. And I'm like, so when did you have a brain injury? He said, I never did. And I'm like, are you sure? And now he starts swearing at me.

It's like, F, no. But you know, I've been sworn at a lot. And that's outside of his marriage. I grew up in the grocery business of my father. So that didn't really bother me. And I'm like, are you sure? F no. Have you ever been in, you know, ever fallen out of a tree?

F no. In a car accident? F no. Played sports? F no. And then it's like, F no, F no. And then he stopped. And he's like, oh my God, I was in a motorcycle accident. And I said, well, what happened? And he said he was riding his motorcycle around a lake and a deer, baby deer, came out onto the road and he didn't want to hit the baby deer. And so he spilled the bike onto his left side and was unconscious. And he's like, do you think that counts? And I said, F yes. Trying to bond with my patients.

That has happened so many times. So if you have ever had a significant brain injury. Even if you don't think you did. Well, if you suffer with anger, irritability, memory issues, you really want to ask yourself, have I had a significant brain injury? And if I had, might be useful to come and get your brain scan. But the exciting news, I mean, you know, because you've been with me the whole time I've been doing this study, the exciting news is you're not stuck with the damaged brain you have. You can make it better. And I just, I want to come back to what we were talking about earlier. And this is where I think it's, personally, I think it's very unfair. And I know I'm very outspoken about things, but, um, you know, but you know, these soldiers that we

talk about and our officers that, that we send out and we, we benefit from their work. These are our warriors, but they come back hurt and we're not doing a good job of taking care of them. We are not. We are not. And they're warriors. But you know, to that point, you are warriors. So you need to at least be armed with the knowledge of what you can do to help yourself in the meantime. Along the same lines as soldiers, one of the studies we're actually getting ready to do here at Amen Clinics is on firefighters. We are so excited about this because like with soldiers, they're heroes. They're our first responders. And I know they've been exposed to multiple accidents as they try to get quickly to the fire or to the accident, but they're also exposed to smoke inhalation, carbon monoxide, which is toxic to

their brain. But the exciting news and what we learned, I mean, we've been doing this for a long time. You're not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. And we learned that with the NFL study. So people who had very clear evidence of damage on their brains and in their lives. Four times the level of depression than in the general population. And you know, there's a higher incidence of murder and domestic violence, being arrested and so on. Yeah, you look at the connection between all of those things and we have very similar results at the end. But the exciting news is on a brain rehabilitation program, their brains can get better. You know, the other thing, because we always want to leave you with practical tips. Your brain is soft and it's housed in a really hard skull with multiple sharp bony ridges.

If your child comes to you and says, I want to play football. If it's my child, the answer is there's no way in hell that's going to happen because I love you and I care about you, but I really want to. I was at the Future of Medicine conference and somebody asked me the question, you know, my 13 year old wants to play. What would you say? No, but he really wants to play. And I'm like, well, the damage is about the same as cocaine. So if he said, I really wanted to do cocaine, would you get him a good deal?

Probably not. I'm just, I'm not a fan. And one of the reasons I'm not a fan is your brain as an adolescent goes under wild development, right? I mean, it's just, and it's not done until you're about 25 in girls and about 28 in boys. And so why would you ever put a developing brain at risk for a concussion that could basically impact negatively the rest of their life? And it's worse for girls. Yeah, no, because I practice martial

arts and I have my daughter practice martial arts and she wanted to do jujitsu for a while. But the first month she got slammed on the ground a couple of times and hit the back of her head. I'm like, you're done. That's it. We'll find something else. Because IQ for girls, for females, 90% of their IQ is found in their frontal lobes, where for males, it's more widely distributed. So a frontal lobe injury for a female is much more damaging than for a male. So, you know, the take-home answer really is no, we're going to get a ping pong table because table tennis is the world's best brain game. And if it's not table tennis, then it's dancing. Okay, I got to jump in here.

Because I love martial arts, but I practice in a way that I don't allow, I don't get hit in the head. So, you know, you learn how to hit without getting hit, and you don't need to be hit in the head. Well, you also don't fight. I don't compete. You don't compete. No, I do. I do practice sparring, but I don't compete. Now, people who do martial arts, there's actually imaging studies. And because they learn very complicated movements, they actually have bigger brains, more gray matter in their brain. But I've actually spoken for the Karate Hall of Fame dinner, and there's a whole bunch of brain damage.

Well, those are guys that have been competing for lifelong and doing a lot of other things that are not good for their brains. But that's another story. But it really does increase the amount of, you know, the size of your brain when you do those complicated movements. It's very good for you. So the Super Bowl's coming up. I know most of America will watch the Super Bowl.

I don't know about, well, I love football. I hate what it does to people. If you've had an injury at some point in your past, a sports concussion or a motor vehicle accident, if you fell out of a tree or out of a second story window, we can help. What we'd also love for you to do is write below your story. If you or someone you care about

has had a significant injury and it's changed their life, write about it or send us in a video and we'll try to answer some of the questions you have. But the program that we'll outline and we'll give to you in other episodes has demonstrated to be able to improve many of

those brains. And just to add to that, we know that part of the Super Bowl phenomenon is getting together and socializing with friends. So if you're going to be watching other people damaging their brains, you don't need to be damaging your own while you're socializing with your friends. With the bad food and the alcohol. Right. Well, and so I'm happy to, what I will do is post some very simple brain healthy tips, ways to have a very fun brain healthy party for Super Bowl. Now, if you've been bad to your brain, if you're watching this and you're sort of horrified,

if you've been bad to your brain, the good news is it's never too late to stop the bad things, start doing the good things, and have a better brain. And when you do, you have a better life. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. I'm Tana Amen. Thank you. Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show.

And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen Clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.