StemCell Therapy

Not for the squeamish, it was unmissable science in action.

The dissection of a human brain unlocks more secrets about a person's character than we could conceal in a treasure trove of love letters.

Your correspondent was privileged to watch Steve Gentleman, a professor of neuropathology at Imperial College London, decipher the code of neurons, stem cells and blood vessels in one preserved encephalon at the Parkinson's UK Brain Bank.

One day, his research into neurodegenerative diseases and traumatic head injury, based on the donation of human brains, could stop the march of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other insidious enemies.

Former England striker Jeff Astle donated his brain, in the name of medical science, after his death at the age of 59.

Better late than never, it revealed the concussive effects of heading leather footballs, which became more like boulders when wet, and turned his family's campaign for essential research into the subject from a lit torch into a raging bushfire.

Fifty years ago this month, Astle finished the season as leading scorer in English football's top flight.

His 25 goals for West Brom earned him a place in Sir Alf Ramsey's England squad, not to mention as a prominent voice among the players performing their 1970 World Cup anthem Back Home in tuxedos on Top of the Pops.

The tenacity of his family, led by Astle's daughter Dawn, in pursuit of the truth behind his death has shone a light in some uncomfortable corners for the game.

If the PFA players' union and the FA were slow to wake up to links between heading footballs and neurodegenerative disorders, they are wide awake now.

By dying, and donating his brain for medical research, my dad now speaks for the living, said Dawn.

Before the end, he didn't even know he had been a footballer. Everything that football gave him England caps, the winner in an FA Cup final football took away again.

Even in his prime, he didn't really have many opinions about anything. Normally, he was so easy-going he never got worked up about politics or anything controversial his glass was always half-full.

But years before he fell ill, he watched a programme on TV about organ donation and suddenly he piped up, 'I don't understand why people wouldn't donate parts of their body after they pass away they are no good to you when you are gone.'

He was unusually passionate about it, so we had no hesitation in offering his brain to medical science.

Without that donation, we would never have known that, in the end, his brain looked like the brain of a boxer.

When he died in January 2002 aged 59, Astle's health had already been in manifest decline for four years, his brain damaged by repeated heading of leather footballs.

The coroner's verdict death by industrial disease - immediately rang alarm bells with his family.

We knew my dad couldn't possibly be the only one, said Dawn. He died on my birthday, in my house, choking on my food, and the image haunts me to this day.

But when you go through something so traumatic, it hardens your resolve to find the truth.

It would take 12 years before the family arranged with Dr Willie Stewart, a consultant neuropathologist in Glasgow, to re-examine Astle's brain tissue.

He confirmed their deepest suspicion: Astle had not been suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's but CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a degenerative condition consistent with punch-drunk boxers.

Dr Stewart told us if he hadn't known my dad was 59, he would have thought the brain belonged to a man of 90 or more, said Dawn.

He re-examined my dad's brain in 2014 on his birthday, May 13th, and it turned out to be be best birthday present we arranged for him because it revealed the truth.

As a family, we now believe passionately in the importance of brain and other organ tissue donation for one reason: In future, it means someone else won't have to do it.

Three of England's 1966 World Cup winning squad Ray Wilson and Martin Peters, no longer with us, and Nobby Stiles, now suffering from advanced dementia - have already been struck down by the curse of neurological disintegration.

Were they all victims of the same heading trauma as Astle?

The circumstantial evidence is stacking up.

Original post:
Wally meets Dawn Astle: England striker's daughter campaigned for the truth behind her dad's death - Mirror Online

This entry was posted on April 11, 2020 at 3:53 am and is filed under Death by Stem Cells. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |