medication to treat it. but there is hope on the horizon. scientists from the u.s. and switzerland conducted a year long study treating patients with the new medication and you can imagine. the results were highly promising one of the main causes of proteins produced by the body these so-called amyloid plaques for more nerve cells and block the neurons transport systems. with the new therapy antibodies attack the planks. and destroy them. the study involved one hundred sixty five patients each received either an infusion containing the antibodies or a placebo brain scans of the patients on the medication showed a significant reduction of the protein deposits as shown here on the right the higher the dosage of added can a map and the longer the therapy lasted the greater the reduction in plaques olga
it s created by the motion. it s created by the disturbance of the brain. while you are playing contact sports it will continue. is it like the case lots of diseases that we seem to talk about. one of the things where it was probably just as common place 15 or 20 years ago but now we have the ability to look at actual brains post mortem? i m sure it was. as we were saying it is not so ease al distinguishable from other forms of dementia particularly parkinson s and alzheimer s and abnormal protein deposits are similar to proteins that are seen in alzheimer s although they are considered two different diseases. i m sure that many of these football players were thought to have regular dementia of aging. it has been around probably for as long as contact sports have been around. what is this going to mean for the future of football?
science after they died. so there was already some concern about it. there s no way to suggest that 96% of all nfl players will develop cte. but there is obviously a lot of science here. and when you look at the brains of these people, what they found were these protein deposits that were very similar, again, to what you might see with alzheimer s disease. in life, these people often had anger issues, depression, and memory loss. those were the three the sort of constellation of symptoms that people often develop. and it was often younger players, whose brains were still developing, that may have been most at risk. there s a lot of interest in this. obviously, a lot of research going on in this area, how to keep these players safe and how to prevent cte or at least diminish it in those players after they retire. that was sanjay gupta and the next hour of the cnn newsroom starts right now. hello and thank you for joining me this weekend.
encephalopathy is not something we even knew about until seven or eight years ago. studies began in 2008. i visited the lab in 2011 where the science was taking place where they were examining the brains of former nfl players and other people, as well. this most recent study says 96% of people whose brains were examined had evidence of the cte. i want to make something clear. these were people who probably during their lives worried that something was wrong and donated had their brains donated to science after they died. there was already some concern about it. this is no way to suggest that 96% of all nfl players will develop cte. there is obviously a lot of science here. when you look at the brains of these people, what they found were protein deposits that were very similar again to what you might see with alzheimer s disease. in life, these people often had anger issues, depression, and memory loss. those are the three sort of
cognitive impairment suggestive of alzheimer s, and they imaged their brains. and they asked those patients do you remember ever having a concussion. and what they found was that the brain scans showed evidence of these protein deposits that we see in alzheimer s patients at much greater rates in patients who had had concussions. it s very interesting i. really shows us a possible link and a possible risk factor to think about. harris: dr. campbell, good to see you. happy holidays to you. and to you. thanks for the twitter follow. harris: absolutely. leland: you probably can t tell looking at the windows behind us, but it is cold outside here in the northeast and, therefore, the after-christmas getaway is on. arrest harris oh, look at that! leland: wouldn t you like to be will? harris: i like that one woman s suit. leland: phil keating is arrive in sunny florida where there is now a record-breaking week for tourism. we wish we were live on the