Concussions, not 'Roids Rage, are responsible for Benoit homicide/suicide
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by Brittschramm
Chronic concussions due to years of wrestling, not the abuse of steroids, led to Chris Benoit killing himself and his family, according to test results from the Sports Legacy Institute says ABC News. Pictured above is a comparison between a healthy brain matter and Benoit's post-mortem tissue. The brown spots in Benoit's brain indicate cell death; a pattern which is very similar to that of people with Alzheimer's experience. A few telling quotes from the news piece are:
"These tests show that Benoit's brain was so severely damaged that it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient."
"They found that Benoit's brain showed an advanced form of dementia that appears on the brain scan as brown clumps or tangles. These brown spots are actually dead brain cells, killed off as a result of head trauma, said Julian Bailes of the Sports Legacy Institute. In Benoit's case, the damage was found in every section of the brain — all four lobes and deep into the brain stem."
These findings provide a better explanation than the inital simplistic classification of 'Roids rage. Both of my paternal grandparents both suffered from this disease and while violence has never been associated with the disease, I did see periods of aggression with my grandfather due to his total lack of comprehension of the people and places within his surroundings. I coudln't imagine if he was a 40 year old Roided-up professional wrestler with the same type of brain issues.
Really, no one may truly know what actually drove Benoit to go homicidal but it appears that concussions, once thought to be just a laughable sideline shot of someone breathing Smelling Salts to shake the cobwebs out, are becoming a very serious issue.
Britt Schramm tries to blog over at Tripping The Life Fanatic
