MedPage Today (9/19, George) reports, “A cascade of brain injuries was evident in contact sport athletes long before they had signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), autopsy data showed.” These “injuries led to neuron loss, inflammation, and vascular damage in the former athletes, most of whom played American football and all of whom died before age 51, according to” researchers. The findings were published in Nature.

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— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

PBS NewsHour (9/19, Brown) reported, “The music industry, full of glamorous stars and thrilling performances, can also be grueling for the musicians themselves, sometimes even with tragic consequences.” A MusiCares survey from 2024 “revealed that over 8 percent of respondents within that industry had…serious thoughts of suicide in the past year. That is notably higher than the 5 percent rate among the general population.” Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown discussed the Park City Song Summit in Utah that featured an emphasis on mental health and wellness.

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— “Music festival helps artists confront and manage the industry’s mental health impact,”William Brangham, PBS NewsHour , September 19, 2025

Infectious Disease Advisor (9/19, Kuhns) reported a study found that “pre-COVID-19 mental and physical health is significantly worse in patients who later develop long COVID.” For the study, researchers “aimed to determine whether health-related quality of life (HRQOL) prior to COVID-19 infection predicts development of long COVID symptoms. They also compared pre-COVID-19 HRQOL between patients who developed long COVID and matched control patients, as well as HRQOL trajectories from initial infection through 1 year.” Researchers observed that “lower pre-COVID-19 HRQOL scores were significantly associated with a higher risk for multiple long COVID symptoms, including after adjustments for age, sex, and initial COVID-19 hospitalization.” Furthermore, “after 1 year of follow-up, the researchers noted both mental and physical health scores remained significantly lower in patients with long COVID compared with matched control patients. Although patients with long COVID experienced a greater decline in HRQOL 1 year after initial infection, the decline was not clinically significant.” The study was published in Frontiers in Public Health.

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— “Pre-COVID-19 HRQOL Predicts Severity of Long COVID Symptoms,”Lisa Kuhns, Infectious Disease Advisor , September 19, 2025

Healio (9/18, Gawel) reports a study found that “soccer players with more frequent repetitive head injuries from heading the ball had significantly greater microstructural disruption in their juxtacortical white matter at sulci depths.” Subsequently, “these injuries also were associated with poorer performance on verbal learning and memory performance testing.” Study lead Michael L. Lipton, MD, PhD, professor of radiology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, told Healio, “The study builds on our prior work showing that heading is associated with changes in brain microstructure and cognitive performance.” He added, “However, the peripheral white matter has never been examined, although it is known to be a site of injury in TBI and a focus of pathology in CTE.” The study was published in Neurology.

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— “Soccer heading linked to microstructural injury, lower cognitive performance,”Richard Gawel, Healio , September 18, 2025

KFF Health News (9/18, Wolfson) reports the goal of fostering physicians who train locally and stay to work in rural areas is weakened by “recent state and federal spending cuts” that will “pull dollars out of an already frayed health system, exacerbating the shortage of care and making their efforts more challenging.” KFF details how “California’s health care shortage is driven by the struggles of rural hospitals; an aging physician workforce; the inherent appeal to up-and-coming doctors of more urban areas; and the financial pressures of doing business in a region with a high proportion of low-paying government insurance, especially Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the Medicaid program, for people with low incomes and disabilities.” Specialists are in “acutely short supply” in many northern counties, with some areas with no specialists at all. Beyond funding cuts, “medical educators also worry about new caps on federal student loans, which could deter lower-income students, including those in rural areas, from medical school. Altogether, the financial constraints will only make the health care shortage worse.”

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— “Health Care Cuts Threaten Homegrown Solutions to Rural Doctor Shortages,”Bernard J. Wolfson, KFF Health News, September 18, 2025