Elite male soccer players are 60% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias compared with the general population, a study shows.  

But goalkeepers do not face the same risk as their outfield teammates, probably because they rarely head the ball, the authors say.  

Their study of more than 6000 men who played at least one game in Sweden’s top league showed 9% were diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease, compared to 6% of matched controls, over an average of 26 years’ follow-up. 

The authors, from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, said their findings confirmed that elite soccer players had a greater risk of dementia later in life.