176: The 'D' Word with Pete Hill - Episode 176176: The 'D' Word with Pete Hill - Episode 176
UK Health Radio Podcast
Pete Hill talks with sports technologist Leuan Phillips about how football design and heading might relate to dementia risk. They discuss myths around old leather balls, the role of pressure waves, and how subtle changes to equipment could help protect players without changing the game itself.
35:19•17 Jul 2026
Safer Headers and Dementia Risk: Footballs Under the Microscope
Episode Overview
- Modern synthetic footballs can transfer more energy to the brain than old leather balls, even though their weight and size fall within the same laws of the game.
- The risk from heading is influenced by both heading frequency and impact severity, but reliable data on training and historical playing styles is still limited.
- Pressure waves in the first moments of ball–head contact may be a key factor in brain injury, linking sports impacts to mechanisms already seen in military blast research.
- Changes to football design and inflation rules could reduce risk without drastically altering how the game is played, but require buy-in from governing bodies and manufacturers.
- Further collaboration with neuropathologists is needed to connect biomechanical findings with actual brain pathology, particularly for both men’s and women’s football.
“"We haven't found any evidence that changes to the ball have made this problem go away."”
Curious about how a simple football can be tied to lifelong brain health? This conversation on The 'D' Word with Pete Hill takes that everyday object and turns it into a serious question about dementia risk. Pete chats with sports technologist Leuan Phillips from Loughborough University, whose work digs into how football design might reduce the risks linked to heading.
Rather than chasing tiny performance gains like a ball flying "0.1% faster", Phillips explains how his passion for sport and safety led him to ask a bigger question: can the ball itself be reshaped to be safer to head? The chat breaks down a lot of myths. That old idea that heavy, wet leather balls were the only villains?
Phillips notes that while leather balls do get heavier, modern synthetic balls can actually transfer *more* energy to the brain in both dry and wet conditions. As he puts it, "we haven't found any evidence that changes to the ball have made this problem go away" – a sobering line for anyone who thought modern gear had solved everything.
The episode also looks at heading frequency, training habits, and how styles of play might affect risk, while stressing how incomplete the data still is. Phillips describes how his team studies pressure waves that travel through the skull in the first moments of impact, linking this to patterns seen in conditions like CTE and calling for more work from neuropathologists. Style-wise, the chat is calm, clear and very human.
It balances technical talk with plain language, keeps things non-alarmist, and repeatedly reminds fans that football still has huge physical and social benefits. If you care about dementia, coach kids, love the game, or just like hearing careful science explained without drama, this one gives you a lot to think about. How might a slightly different ball shape the future health of players at every level?
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.