India, July 15 -- According to a recent study, middle-aged former professional soccer players may have shrinkage in important parts of the brain, eventually leading to clinical depression and anxiety in the coming years.
"These findings suggest there may be measurable effects on brain health in former elite soccer players even in midlife, before clinically apparent neurodegenerative disease would typically emerge," said lead author Caleigh Grace Lynch, a research technician at Imperial College London in the UK.
For the study, researchers compared 142 former professional soccer players, which included 126 men who had played professionally for at least three years and 16 women who had competed in professional soccer in the UK. The participa...