Mandy Oaklander | August 10, 2026

These are boom times for infectious-disease experts. Media types like us have been calling upon them more often than usual to explain recent pathogen-related crises, from the cruise-ship hantavirus outbreak in the spring and the ongoing Ebola emergency in the Democratic Republic of Congo to the spate of foodborne illnesses in the U.S.

You might assume these experts are some of the most germaphobic folks around. But when my colleague Angela Haupt asked a bunch of them what microbial threats they don’t worry about, a surprising number of common concerns made the list. Among them: dirty sheets, reusable grocery totes, and slightly grimy phones.

TODAY’S TOPICS

Soccer’s link to brain damage
Flesh-eating bacteria are creeping northward
Got a question for us?
The best time to eat dinner

MORNING CHAT

The link between soccer and brain damage

Few sports can draw a global audience for 104 matches over 39 days, yet the recently concluded World Cup managed that remarkable feat. But a recent early study raised concern about the game’s potential effects on the brains of players, who head the ball with force. It found that retired professional soccer players had worse results on a battery of cognitive tests and imaging than non-athletes.

I talked to Dr. Thomas Parker, senior author of that study and clinical lecturer and consultant neurologist at Imperial College London, about his research. —Jeffrey Kluger

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

yangyang—Getty Images

American football players are frequently diagnosed with the form of brain damage known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as a result of repeated hits to the head. Did you find anything similar in your work?

This was a preliminary analysis of former soccer players at midlife and represents a baseline study for future work. We did not specifically look at CTE, as this is something that currently can only be diagnosed at post-mortem. This is a single snapshot, and longitudinal follow-up will be much more important for understanding the brain health of retired soccer players over time.

What cognitive symptoms did the players exhibit?

We did find elevated rates of certain symptoms including memory and thinking concerns, anxiety, and depression in the retired players, although it is important to say these symptoms are common in the general population and the exact relevance is uncertain. We did not find clear-cut objective evidence of dementia at this stage overall.

I think the main message is not that former players are necessarily showing overt dementia-like symptoms in midlife, but rather that there are early biological and psychological signals that warrant careful follow-up.

Can we say the linkage between soccer play and these problems is definitive, or might it just be associative?

It is difficult to draw firm causal conclusions at this stage. Longitudinal follow-up will be very helpful to determine whether these early imaging and symptom differences are associated with later cognitive decline or neurodegenerative disease.

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TODAY I LEARNED

“Flesh-eating” bacteria could be coming to a seaside near you

A scanning electron micrograph of the "flesh-eating" bacteria Vibrio vulnificus. Getty Images/Callista Images

Since I last reported on Vibrio vulnificus—less than a week ago—more U.S. states have reported deaths from the “flesh-eating” bacteria. Seven people in the U.S. have died so far.

The bacteria thrive in warm, shallow, and slightly salty (called “brackish”) water. Infections are, fortunately, rare, and most of them occur in the U.S. along the Gulf Coast during the summer months. But climate change is expanding the geographical range of the bacteria and lengthening the seasonal window during which it thrives.

A 2023 study found that the northern boundary of Vibrio vulnificus infections on the East Coast had crept northwards by a rate of 30 miles per year since 1998. In about 50 years, the authors predicted, Vibrio vulnificus infections may be present in every eastern U.S. state. —Dominique Mosbergen

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