1 in 4 Former NFL Players Had CTE at Death in 2016 to 2021

TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2026 (HealthDay News) — About 1 in 4 former National Football League (NFL) players who died during 2016 to 2021 had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) at death, according to a study published online Aug. 25 in The BMJ.

Daniel Daneshvar, M.D., Ph.D., from Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study involving 1,712 former NFL players who died during 2008 to 2021, 338 of whom donated their brains for neuropathological evaluation.

Of the 338 players” brains that were studied, 315 (93.2 percent) had a diagnosis of CTE. Consequently, the possible prevalence of CTE at death varied from 18.5 to 98.7 percent among all 1,712 former NFL players who died. The researchers found that the possible prevalence of CTE at death ranged from 24.5 to 97.7 percent during 2016 to 2021, when brain donation was most frequent. Of the brain donors, 30.8 percent had stage 4 CTE, 59.8 percent had clinician-diagnosed dementia (onset, 63.4 years), and neurodegenerative disease was listed as the primary cause of death in 18.6 percent. There was an association seen for stage 4 CTE with study clinician-diagnosed dementia in brain donors (risk ratio, 1.44). Neurodegenerative disease was listed as the primary or secondary cause of death in 40.6 percent of donors with study clinician-diagnosed dementia.

“Community brain bank studies have shown that CTE affects less than 1 percent of the general population,” Daneshvar said in a statement. “To find that somewhere between 24.5 percent and 97.7 percent of NFL players from that time period had this progressive brain disease is a wake-up call for the NFL and scientific communities.”

Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical and sports industries.

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