Studies show that challenging the mind with activities like hobbies, games, and socializing, can reduce the chance of contracting Alzheimer’s disease. Other studies point out the benefits of certain types of exercise in preventing Alzheimer's disease. We will try to outline the benefits of both here.
Note: There
are many similarities between Alzheimer's disease and
Progressive Supranulear Palsy including the plaques that
progressively build up eventually killing the neural cells in the
brain.
Because of this close association it might be wise to assume that
mental and physical stimulation might delay the progression of
progressive supranuclear palsy and other neurological
diseases.
Doctors are worried about the rapid spread of Alzheimer’s disease, or AD. Estimates are that 22 million people worldwide will be affected by AD by 2025. Researchers are collecting evidence that the brain disease may be slowed down with activities that engage one’s brainpower, including hobbies, reading, and learning languages.
At age 85, Helen Ward continues to hone her musical skills on the piano and the organ. "You can’t wait for someone to entertain you, you have to go out and look for it," says Ward.
While Ward enjoys playing the tunes of yesterday, for the past 5 years the octogenarian has been striking the keys of contemporary life--at the computer, surfing the Internet. "I’m always wanting to try something new all the time, just like the computer," she says.
Ward’s efforts to keep her mind challenged are in line with research at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine which finds that people whose minds were continually challenged with pursuits like games, puzzles, and painting, were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease later in life.
"The idea is if you can build up more synapses during life by learning things, that you can decrease your chances of showing the effects, at least, of Alzheimer’s disease," reports Dr. Bruce Lasker, MD, a neurologist at Mission Bay Hospital in San Diego, California, who reviewed the study.
AD, for which there is no cure, affects the parts of the brain that control thought, memory, and language. While nearly half of Americans age 85 and older may have the disease, federal health officials do not consider AD a normal part of aging. Sticky plaques progressively build up in the brain, slowly killing off neural cells.
The Case Western study found that passive pursuits, like watching television, offered no protection against onset of the disease. The study was based, in part, upon the lifestyles of those in various stages of Alzheimer’s, which affects 4 million Americans, 200,000 Canadians, and 8 million others worldwide. "I think that the right kinds of hobbies that challenge your mind, that cause you to learn and think, are the kinds of hobbies that people want to be interested in," says Ronald Hendrix, PhD, of the San Diego Alzheimer’s Association. Alzheimer’s researchers generally theorize that both genetic and environmental (lifestyle) factors contribute to the onset of the disease. "Trying to sort those out over time is a very difficult and complex task," says Hendrix.
The Cleveland, Ohio-based study further suggests that reduced AD risk can come from staying physically fit. Says Hendrix, "If you’re active both physically and intellectually you’re going to build up ‘reserves.’ If you exercise, you’re going to have better oxygenation--which helps to make it function. Using your brain is going create better chemical balances." For those with a genetic history of AD, excessive intake of fatty foods was also found by Case Western researchers to promote onset of the disease, by five or six times.
Adds Dr. Lasker, "I think that physical health is very important, not quite as much a direct effect on the brain as mental exercise has, but it may be as valuable in its own way."
The neurologist says social interactions or tasks requiring concentration, for example, gardening or community involvement, are valuable for pushing back the effects of aging, including Alzheimer’s: "You don’t have to read Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, [but] simple things that keep your mind going."
Doctors say it’s wise to develop cognitively challenging pursuits early in life, though it’s never too late to start. Says Lasker, "I think the take-home message has to be that you probably can never get enough mental stimulation at any age."
But Helen Ward didn’t need a study to convince her to continue pursuing brainpower activities: "Friends help a lot," says Ward. "You can’t be a couch potato, let’s face it. So keep involved in other activities," she advises.
August 07, 2000
BALTIMORE, MD -- April 14, 2005 -- The variety of leisure and physical activity one engages in -- and not its intensity in terms of calories expended - may reduce dementia risk in older people, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins. An association between variety of activity and dementia risk, however, did not hold up in those with the so-called APOE-4 genetic predisposition to the disease found in about one-quarter to one-third of Alzheimer's patients, according to a report appearing in the April 1, 2005, issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
General physical activity is already known to enhance cardiovascular health and help maintain independence and quality of life in older people, but the results of this study - which establish a statistical association, and not a direct cause and effect, between variety of exercise and reduced dementia risk -- suggest that participating in a number of different activities may be as or more important than frequency, duration, and intensity of physical activity with respect to dementia risk, according to the report.
"We don't yet know why this association exists or what causes it. It could well be that maintaining a variety of activities keeps more parts of the brain active, or that this variety reflects better engagement in both physical and social activities. Confirmation of this association in future studies may provide an additional impetus for people to remain or become engaged in several physical and other leisure activities later in life," says Constantine G. Lyketsos, M.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins and senior author on the report.
The study included 3,375 men and women age 65 years or older who participated in the Cardiovascular Health Cognition Study from 1992 to 2000 and who did not have dementia at the onset of the study. Each study volunteer was asked to fill out a questionnaire about the frequency and duration of the 15 most common types of physical activity in older adults, including walking, household chores, mowing, raking, gardening, hiking, jogging, biking, exercise cycling, dancing, aerobics, bowling, golfing, general exercise and swimming. The researchers then created an activity index, calculated as the number of different activities each subject participated in over the previous two weeks. Other measurements, including APOE gentotype, age, gender, education level, ethnicity, smoking, alcohol use, and other physical and mental health-related history, were also considered in the study.
The researchers found 480 new cases of dementia over an average of 5.4 years of follow-up. Among these, dementia occurred less frequently in those participating in more activities relative to those who participated in fewer activities (one or no activity had 130 cases, two activities had 152 cases, three activities had 113 cases, four or more activities had 84 cases). The association held true for all types of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. The association did not hold true for those who have the APOE-4 genotype.
"These findings, taken together with recent findings from our colleagues at the University of Chicago studying physical activity and plaque buildup in the brains of mice with Alzheimer's (published this year in the journal Cell) provide a good picture from basic and clinical science of how activity and exercise work to reduce the risk of dementia," says Lyketsos.
According to the Alzheimer's Association, dementia is a group of diseases that all gradually destroy brain cells and lead to progressive decline in mental function. An estimated 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. The number of American's with Alzheimer's disease has more than doubled since 1980 and is projected to reach 11.3 to 16 million by the year 2050.
Other authors of the report are Laura Jean Podewils, Eliseo Gualler, Linda Fried and Michelle Carson of Johns Hopkins, and Lewis H. Kuller and Oscar L. Lopez of the University of Pittsburg. The research was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Institute on Aging.
