Jay Cutler had a long and mostly successful NFL journey. But it came at a price.
The quarterback claims he suffered from 15 concussions in his 12-year playing career with the Broncos, Bears and Dolphins.
“I’ve damaged enough things and brain parts and heart and everything in my life, if I make it to 80, or anything after that, I’ll be happy,” Cutler told Clay Skipper of GQ.
The concussion protocols were commonplace in Cutler’s career. His last documented concussion came on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2017 in a 30-20 Dolphins loss to the Buccaneers.
“Oh, absolutely,” Cutler said when asked if he thinks about CTE and concussions. “I would say definitely my memory isn’t the same as it was five years ago. The amount of concussions I’ve had are probably in the double digits. It’s gonna catch up to me at some point. I’m just trying to delay it as much as possible.”
Cuter said last month’s Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take” that “CTE, it’s coming at some point.”
So, how exactly is he delaying the ramifications of those crippling head injuries?
“Trying to cut sugar. Heavy amounts of fish oil have been tied to health in the brain,” Cutler told GQ.
“I’m doing Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD) therapy. I’m doing it through IVs now. NAD is in all the cells in your body, the mitochondria, the energy that pushes each cell to function. As you get older, you lose NAD. So I’m doing NAD therapy, which, at a core level, helps everything in your body. I’ve noticed that that’s definitely helped me. Anything I can do these days, I’m trying to get involved in.”
CTE is a progressive brain disease that comes from blows to the head and various concussions. The disease is prominent among football players and has been discovered in the brains of many athletes who have died young – doctors found that Junior Seau’s brain suffered from CTE after his suicide, in one of the more prominent examples.
But there is hope. NAD is a promising, emerging treatment for concussions and CTE. So, even though his brain will never be the same, Cutler is thankful for his arduous journey and would do it all again.
“Absolutely I would,” Cutler said when asked if he would be a football player, in hindsight. “I wouldn’t even question it. I’d sign up in a heartbeat. The relationships that I made, the memories that I have, the lifestyle it’s accustomed me and my kids [to]. It outweighs the benefits. In my mind. There may be some people that say, ‘hey, that’s crazy.’ But I’d do it all over again, no question about it.”