Soccer players who head the ball badly could be damaging their necks.
A team led by Feza Korkusuz of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, looked at magnetic resonance and X-ray images of the necks of 30 amateur footballers. They also measured the flexibility and strength of their necks.
Compared with non-players, the soccer players had less flexible necks, more movement between and damage to the cervical discs, and greater compression of the spinal cord, the researchers report. Typically, this sort of degeneration is only found in much older patients, Korkusuz says.
Such damage may be just mildly painful, but it can also lead to more serious conditions such as cervical spondylosis, in which the discs degenerate. Exercises or simply timing headers correctly should prevent this type of damage, Korkusuz says, because it would prevent jarring of the neck.
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Attention has previously focused on whether headers cause brain damage. Some studies suggest the cognitive performance of players who frequently head the ball is slightly reduced, but a review in 2001 concluded there was no long-term damage.
Journal reference: European Spine Journal (vol 13, p 76)
