100% Boxing did not cause Ali's Parkinson's

[Fr3$h]

There are literally thousands of studies from every top medical research institution linking head trauma to Parkinsons

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/814849
http://www3.scienceblog.com/communit.../20033835.html

It's one of those "duh" things people keep trying to debunk but the evidence seems to side with the "duh" party: Getting smashed in the head can eventually damage parts of the brain that control bodily functions. Even if you were genetically prone to a certain neurodegenerative disease, getting fragile parts of the brain that are fighting it's onset smashed up makes it worse. Duh.

No matter how obvious or well-studied something is there will always be someone who thinks "it can't be that simple"... When usually it is

[- Ram Raid -]

We might like to tell ourselves that because it's negates delving into the uncomfortable moral implications of what it is we're financing here. But, it really is quite simple. If you expose an organ to repeated trauma it gets damaged.

One Swedish study concluded that up to 80% of boxers studied showed signs of brain damage and that included both professional and amateur. Moreover non of the boxers studied had every lost by a knockout: - "Our study shows that after bouts, some of the boxers had elevated concentrations of four different proteins in the brain fluid, which all signal damage to the brain's nerve cells. Moreover, two of the proteins were still elevated after a period of rest"

Concerning Ali specifically he was originally diagnosed in 1984 under Dr Stanley Fahn, a professor of neurology at Columbia University. He found that Ali didn't have Parkinson's disease but rather Parkinson's syndrome. As he explained, "With Parkinson's disease, the cells in the brain stem that produce dopamine progressively degenerate and die and produce less dopamine. In Muhammad's case there's damage to those cells from physical trauma."

Neither Fahn nor Dr Dennis Cope, a professor of medicine at UCLA who treated Ali regularly over the years detected any signs of dementia pugilistica (punch drunkenness) but both agreed as Dr Cope stated, "If Ali wouldn't have been a professional fighter, none of these problems would have occurred."

Its beyond question that Ali's condition was caused by the trauma of taking repeated blows to the head in both bouts and sparring.

Edit:

The above quotes from Dr's Fahn and Cope where taken from a resent Hugh Mcilvanny article in The Times. Looks like he's used outdated quotes. Here's a snippet from a more recent piece in the Neurology Now journal:

'After a weeklong evaluation period in which Ali and his entourage turned a wing of the hospital into their own private hotel suite, Dr. Fahn diagnosed parkinsonism. What's more, Dr. Fahn suspected that the head trauma inflicted on Ali throughout his boxing career could be the cause.“There was some evidence that he had taken some hits to the head and so forth,” recalls Dr. Fahn, director of the Center for Parkinson's Disease and Other Movement Disorders at Columbia University. “So there was concern on my part that he might have what we call post-traumatic Parkinson's, or ‘pugilistic parkinsonism,’ from damage to the brain and the brain stem.”

In goes on to state however:

'An early Ali complaint of numbness in his lips and face, rendering him unaware of when food needed to be wiped away, indicated damage to the brain stem due to boxing, according to Dr. Fahn. But the steady progression of the disorder over the years, he adds, is more indicative of classic Parkinson's disease. “The proof is only going to come at his autopsy,” Dr. Fahn says, “because the pathology is a little bit different between the two conditions.”

So my original assertion was wide of the mark. I stand corrected.

[Eff Pandas]

100%??? LOL whats your expertise on this subject? I mean ffs his long time doctor would merely go to the point of saying its doubtful. I'd probably pin doubtful at around 90%-98% sure. So you're 2%-10% more sure than the guy who was grabbing Ali's balls & asking him to cough once a year?