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Mental
Games Said to Cut Alzheimer's Risk
By Gene Emery
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
BOSTON
(Reuters) -
Want to ward off Alzheimer's disease? Play
some mental games or go dancing.
Elderly people who frequently read, do crossword puzzles, practice
a musical instrument or play board games cut their risk of
Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia by nearly two-thirds compared to people
who seldom do such activities, researchers said on Wednesday
The findings, which stem from a long-term study of people over 75,
are the latest to buttress the "use it or lose it" theory of staying mentally sharp.
Previous
attempts to test the theory met with controversy because researchers had no way
to tell if people who avoided mentally
challenging activities were doing so because they were already
in the early stages of Alzheimer's.
But neurologist Joe Verghese and his colleagues at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx,
New York, adjusted for that potential complication by following hundreds of elderly
volunteers for more than 20 years.
The study, published in Thursday's New England Journal
of Medicine, showed, for example, that volunteers who did crossword puzzles four
days a week had a risk of dementia that was nearly half that of subjects who did
puzzles once a week.
With the exception of dancing, physical
activity did not decrease the risk. Among the 25 people who danced frequently,
their chance of developing dementia was 76 percent lower.
The Verghese team said mentally
challenging activities may directly slow down the processes that lead to
dementia or, alternatively, create a larger reserve of brain cells that a
patient can tap once deterioration begins.
The study did not look at how many hours a day the volunteers
performed mental activities, nor at how taxing those activities
were on the brain.
"Although we didn't analyze
the intensity of the activity, I think that would influence your risk of
dementia," Verghese told Reuters. "And I would think an activity that is more
challenging would probably be better than something that is less challenging."
More research is needed to confirm the findings and better
understand the influence that genetic, physical
activity and mental challenges play in controlling the timing of Alzheimer's,
Harvard's Joseph Coyle said in a commentary in the Journal.
In the meantime, he encouraged elderly people to read, play board
games and go ballroom dancing.
"These activities, at the very least, enhance their quality
of life, and they just might do more than that," he said.
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