Why are women playing football more dangerous than men?

A new study says football can be more dangerous for women than men because their brains are more vulnerable to hitting their heads.

In a new study that looked at nearly 100 amatuer players, women showed five times more brain tissue damage than men when scanning.

Women's football is on the rise and football is currently the largest women's team sport in the UK, with nearly three million players joining each year.

But researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York have warned that this group may cause similar damage to brain white matter when a brain injury is present.

And experts now fear that repeated headlines of balls can lead to cognitive decline and behavioral changes. Many players have developed dementia including Jeff Astle and Jimmy Hill.

Balls can lead to cognitive decline and behavior change among female players.

"In general, men do more than women, but we want to check specifically whether men and women have similar or different fares with similar exposure levels with repetitive effects to the beginning , " Lead author Michael Lipton said.

In both groups, this effect we see in brain white matter increases in larger numbers, but women exhibit five times more microstructure abnormalities than men when they have group exposure. the same.

"Our study provides preliminary support that women are more sensitive to these types of head-effects at the microscopic level of brain tissue."

Dr. Lipton and his team used advanced brain imaging techniques to assess small changes in brain white matter in 49 men and 49 amateur female football players with an average age of 25 people.

Scanning detects subtle brain damage by measuring the diffusion of water in white matter , called fractional anisotropy (FA).

The more diffuse the water is, the better the microstructure integrity of the tissue. Find a low FA area, representing structural damage to the brain.

Scans show that while both men and women have lower FA values ​​associated with repeating groups, women have lower FA levels on large amounts of brain tissue.

"Our study is larger and more balanced between sex than any previous imaging study of sex and brain injury ," said PhD student Todd Rubin, of the Diagnostic Lab. Sutra at Albert Einstein, added.

"Additional findings on the growing body of evidence that men and women exhibit different biological responses to brain injuries".

Women have lower FA levels on large amounts of brain tissue.

Researchers have speculated that larger injuries may be caused by differences in neck strength, sex or even genetic hormones.

While the group did not call for a ban, they called for more research to find out how many safe times to hit the ball.

"Instead of banning the group completely, this is probably unrealistic, we want a better handle on how many titles will cause players to be in trouble, " Dr Lipton added.

Limiting the number of titles allowed in football can have similar benefits in preventing head injuries.

The important thing in this study is that men and women may need to be considered differently.