More than a decade after retiring from football, Brett Favre says he has Parkinson’s disease. Favre told a congressional hearing Tuesday that he had been recently diagnosed. There are nearly 90,000 new Parkinson’s cases each year in the U.S., according to the Parkinson's Foundation.

"It's hard to say or predict the future as to whether or not Brett Favre or other folks we maybe know in our community would have a lot of disabilities because of Parkinson's disease or if their life expectancy would be any shorter," said Essad.