Book Review: Truth Doesn't Have a Side: My Alarming Discovery about the Danger of Contact Sports by Bennet Omalu

 Many football fans have hard of CTE and the still ongoing controversy about the lasting impacts of contact sports, such as football, on the brain and the general health of the players. While some dispute the connections between contact sports, concussions and brain disease, especially if cited in the context of violent acts, others believe that this connection exists and point to CTE and its prevalence among football players as strong evidence for such a connection.
Bennet Omalu is at the center of this controversy. Not known to many fans, Dr. Bennet Omalu is the neurologist who first detected and wrote the paper for the foundation of CTE as a syndrome associated with contact sports.
 CTE or Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is associated with horrific consequences including suicide and violent behavior. But outside of the attention-grabbing headlines, CTE also stands for the daily struggle a lot of NFL retirees experience that involves deterioration in attention, memory loss, and depression.

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Dr. Bennet Omalu journey started in Nigeria and ended in 2002 with the dead body of former Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster on the autopsy table and Dr. Bennet Omalu's discovery of CTE. This book is Dr. Bennet Omalu's attempt to point out that he did not set out to create controversy or start a crusade against the NFL or contact sport in general, it was just him trying to find an answer why Mike Webster's body looked the way it did and how to explain the changes he found in the brain of the NFL player. He used scientific methods, careful observation and conclusions to come to define CTE and link this syndrome to contact sports and the effect such sports can have on a body.
if you are concerned about the potential effect of football on your children and want to learn more about the current CTE controversy, I highly recommend reading this book.



Disclaimer: I received a free book in exchange for an honest review. The opinion expressed is solely my own and has not been influenced by any third party.