Originally Posted by
ianjk
American male average lifespan: ~75 years
American male professional football player (all positions) average lifespan: ~55 years
You cannot really compare cycling head trauma (maybe a couple dinger'z per lifetime for above average cyclist) to those of an athlete who takes dozens of hits almost daily in both practice and in games.... Figure they start in what 6th or 7th grade and play through college, then pro.... We are talking years of repeated abuse, not only to the brain, but to the rest of the body.
To compare the avg. lifespan of males isn't exactly a valid comparison either. Maybe avg. lifespan of anyone that suffered a collision with a head injury while wearing a helmet on a bike vs a football player ? But that would be hard to compare too, usually getting involved with a car, death occurs more frequently because of other factors. What I'm referring to is more like the comparison from brain studies:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...n5371686.shtml
http://www.life123.com/health/first-...ncussion.shtml
Lifespan really isn't the benchmark I'm looking to measure, it's the identifiable damage in whatever scans they can do. The CBS story shows repeated concussion damage later, maybe decades later. And that's a perfect example for football, but what about what is detectable for cyclists and head injuries decades later ? No data on that I guess, or perhaps the study isn't available yet ?