Junior Seau Tragedy: Do Football Concussions Lead to Suicide? Read more: Junior Seau Tragedy: Do Football Concussions Lead to Suicide? Important: At Risk For A Heart Attack? Find Out Now.

Football star Junior Seau died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on Tuesday. The former San Diego Charger's death follows the suicide of former Atlanta Falcons player Ray Easterling less than two weeks ago. They aren't the first former NFL players to die by their own hands — former Chicago bears player Dave Duerson committed suicide last year — and very likely won't be the last, according to Dr. Russell Blaylock, neurologist and author of The Blaylock Wellness Report. It's almost inevitable, Dr. Blaylock tells Newsmax Health, and the reason boils down to one word: glutamate. To be more precise, glutamate accumulation caused by repeated concussions is the culprit. Repeated injuries cause the microglial immune cells in the brain to become overactive and release toxic levels of glutamate, which creates a state of immunoexcitotoxicity in the brain — chronic brain inflammation, in plain terms. SPECIAL:Improving Memory Can Reduce Alzheimer's Risk "Glutamate causes severe chronic depression as well as addictions to alcohol and drugs, and that can lead to suicide," says Dr. Blaylock. It's still unclear whether Seau suffered concussions during his 17-year pro football career. And it's also unknown if drugs or alcohol were a factor in his death, but they often add to the problems of many sports figures whose brains are already compromised by repeated concussions, says Dr. Blaylock. Depression caused by brain injury can set off a downward spiral of alcohol and drug use — which causes further inflammation in the brain — which causes even more depression, he says. "Drugs and alcohol aggravate and enhance the addiction, and they magnify and accelerate the damaging processes already going on in the brain," Dr. Blaylock says. "It's a vicious cycle." Seau did not have any publicly known problems with drugs and alcohol. In fact, he was known to be articulate and always willing to do charity work. Brain damage caused by concussions is often found in the frontal lobe area of the brain — the part of the brain that causes restraint and controls impulsive actions — and a depressed person whose control is impaired is much more likely to commit suicide. In the ordinary course of events for the average person, a concussion doesn't always cause such dire results. Football players and other athletes, however, are at greater risk because they can suffer repeated head injuries that are never allowed to heal, says Dr. Blaylock. "If you get a single injury and you take care of yourself and take the right supplements, brain damage reverses. But some of these players have 1,000 concussions during their careers, and if they're having repeated blows to the head — even if they are weeks and months apart — the microglia never shut off. "There is a permanent state of immunoexcitotoxicity that continues even after they retire," he says. "So, they have brain inflammation combined with excitotoxic levels of glutamate. "Suicide is often the result when people are chronically depressed, especially when they are also addicted to drugs and alcohol," says Dr. Blaylock.