Tackle football before age 12 may boost risks of cognitive, mood disorders

Enlarge / Youth Pee-Wee football players wait to take the field. (credit: Getty | Kirby Lee)

Taking hard knocks early in life could shove football players toward neurological problems later, a new study suggests.

Among 214 former amateur and professional male football players, those who started playing early-particularly before the age of 12-had greater risks of reporting depression and impaired behavioral regulation and executive function around their 50s, researchers found. Their study, published today in Translational Psychiatry, adds to a pileup of data that suggests playing tackle football as a youth can have long-term health impacts.

The researchers, led by neurologist Robert Stern at Boston University, specifically homed in on those that began playing tackle before the age of 12, a typical cut-off period for major brain development.

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