Professional football players are one-and-a-half times more likely to develop dementia than the general population, a new study has suggested.

The study, published in The Lancet Public Health journal, analyzed the medical records of more than 6,000 male footballers in Sweden's top division from 1924 to 2019.

Researchers compared the footballers' rates of a range of degenerative brain disorders with 56,000 Swedish men across similar age groups.

It found that almost 9 percent of footballers developed a neurodegenerative disease, compared to 6.2 percent within the general population.

8.2 percent of footballers in the report had developed Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, compared to 5.1 percent within the control group.

The findings in the report read: "The risk of neurodegenerative disease was higher among football players than controls (general population). Alzheimer's disease and other dementias were more common among football players than controls.

"Significant group differences were not observed for motor neurone disease, and Parkinson's disease was less common among football players."

The study also compared the rates of neurodegenerative disease between outfield players and goalkeepers, finding that outfield players had a "higher risk of neurodegenerative disease than did goalkeepers."

The report added: "The risk of neurodegenerative disease was higher for outfield players than controls but not for goalkeepers versus controls."

The latest research raises new questions over the future of heading of the football, with the repeated use of their head by footballers previously being associated with dementia.

And the study's lead author Peter Ueda of Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, says the study adds to "convincing evidence" linking football to a higher risk of degenerative brain disorders.

"This finding lends support to the hypothesis that heading the ball might explain this association," he told AFP.

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Ueda added that the study was not able to show that playing football directly caused the dementia, and its findings could not be extended to female, amateur or youth football. 

Due to the time between playing football and developing a brain disorder, many of the players covered in the study were active during the mid-20th century, with Ueda saying that new equipment, knowledge and training could have since made the game safer.

But he also added: "You can also speculate that contemporary players today are exposed to intense football from a very young age, so maybe the risk would even be higher among them."

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